Tag: poetry workshop

poetry

Ways To Make Yourself Feel Silly

carolyncordon

Sometimes, I’m sure all of us do something to make ourselves feel silly. Whether community worker, writer, accountant, bar person, I’m sure every know and then, all of us do something we’d perhaps rather we hadn’t done.

I certainly can confess for doing silly things, things I wish I hadn’t done, in the past. And sometimes ‘in the past’ can be quite recent. I’m confessing right here, right now, that I did a regrettable and very ‘silly’ thing today.

I went to an excellent poetry workshop today, looking at the body, and poetic responses to the subject. The workshop was excellent, and the presenter, Chiara, was well worth listening to. This is the description for the workshop series:

‘Using the canvas of the human anatomy, explore how to personify and more genuinely connect with the most immediate part of our lives, our bodies. Pulling our focus and vision inwards, towards ourselves, and away from the cacophony of external, larger lens of global news and information. Using the personal stories and relationships we have with our own bodies, and pre-existing text from medical books, advertisements, and other media to creatively spark another way of thinking.’

I very much enjoyed this first session that I attended today, with many words written on the subject of ‘the body’ from a variety of different angles. My words were written on lines writing paper, placed in a blue folder, and the writing paper pad also had writing from my writing group from the precious Thursday.

Why am I talking about this, and how is this relevant? Well, I’m sorry to say that that blue folder, containing my notes from today’s workshop, and notes from last Thursday’s meeting didn’t make it home with me today. I arrived home this afternoon, when I realise I only had my handbag, and there was no folder, or notes. Boo, hiss!

Silly, silly, me.

I remember the general gist of what we did today, and hope I can write some more on the subjects we worked on today …

But honestly, sometimes I wonder whether I should be allowed on by myself! I’d had the fortethought to visit the ‘facilities’ before embarking on the long trip home, so congratulations to me for that, but I neglected to bring the folder with me, afterwards, I guess.

Ah well, all is not lost, fortunately, Chiara took photographs of some of the words written at the session today, including two of my own pages, so the words I wrote are not lost forever, hooray for that! This was a smart move on her part, and I am grateful to Chiara for that, for sure.

I don’t know whether these were fantastic words, but they were mine, and on a subject quite important to me, really, so hooray, anyway! Silly me, for sure today, but also poetic me as well, and I had a good session of poetry, with a group of other poets who were not my usual poets I did poetry with, some yes, but certainly not all. This is a good thing!

Mixing and matching, catching up with new people, in a new venue, these are good things. It’s easy to get too comfortable, catching up with the same crew, at the same place, every time …

Many thanks to the State Library for putting on this session, with the Poet in residence, Chiara Gabrielli!

poetry

Creative Writing 4 – Using Poem of Another

carolyncordon

No, Not Plagiarism!

Fear not, I’m not advising anyone to use poems of other poets, and saying they are your poems. This is plagiarism and is rightly against the law. What I am referring to is to use the poems of other poets are inspirations, and ‘templates’ perhaps.

I’ve done this workshop in my favorite venue in Gawler, with gratifying results in the past.

To do this workshop, I advise you either raid your own stash of poetry books, or visit the library and borrow some of theirs.

poetry books

 

Workshop details

  • Other people’s poems can be an unending supply of ideas for the writing of your own poem. Some people think that if you read the poetry of others, you will somehow copy that work, and it will be stealing, instead of being creative.
  • I certainly don’t agree with that idea, I’ve often been inspired by the poems of others, and have come up with something perhaps on the same or a similar subject, but it quite a different form. There are millions of words in the English language, and it is fine to take words from the languages of others and use them too, English is famous for that!
  • I want everyone to find one poetry collections from the ones you are using, to find one tome that seems to ‘speak to you’. This means, one that is on a topic you like, or written in a way you find interesting, or even exciting. Once you have the book you want to use, find a poem or several poems, and write them out on your paper.
  • This poem will be your inspiration for writing a brand new poem for yourself today.
  • Take a poem, and change nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and make it a new poem in that way.
  • Or you can take the poem title and use that as the inspiration for a completely new poem.
  • Another way to use the other person’s work might be to take a particularly striking image or idea in their poem, and write your own poem using that as the title of, and inspiration for your own new poem.
  • These and other ideas can be fascinating ways into poetry, and I hope you are all as excited about what might happen, as I am!

 

My Poetic Response to this Workshop

I chose a poem from the book “Tadpoles in the Torrens”, which is a collection of poems written for children, that have much interest too, for adults. My chosen poem is ‘Cat Nap’ by well known Adelaide poet, Jules Leigh Koch.

For this exercise, I have change the animal to a dog, and followed the format of Jules’ poem, but as it applies to a dog instead of a cat.

 

“Dog Doze by Carolyn Cordon

Our pet dog

as loud

as a thunderstorm

 

Makes her home

in our house

and in our garden

 

To imagine prey

large as dragons

small as mice”

 

I feel I have captured the idea of a dog, in a similar way the other poet captured a cat, and that is what I was certainly trying to do. I am also thinking about writing a haiku poem, similar to the famous poem by well known Japanese Haiku poet Basho, which was written about a frog jumping into a pond.

My poem, if I manage to complete it to my satisfaction, will be about the well known birds, galahs, Australian birds who live around where I live. I love to see them as they fly all around, squawking loudly!

 

Carolyn

Carolyn Cordon, President Adelaide Plains Poets, writer, poet, dreamer, cloud watcher …