Guided Writing Exercise: A way to welcome a season and step out into the sun together
Check-in with yourself <3 [spend 1 slowed-down minute responding to any one or all]
- _ caused me to slow down recently
- _ gave me pause in the last week/month
- _ is what makes me feel noticed
- _ is what I have been noticing more of lately
Forage Round 1 || Found Language, Objects
Reading || 15 minutes
Pick one poem. Write down what made you pick the one you picked & one single thing you noticed about it, make that detail as specific as you can. It could be the punctuation, the pacing, the verbiage used, something it reminded you of…
U-Pick Orchards - Danusha Laméris
A Caterpillar Cocoons - Sappho Stanley
The School of Logic - Chen Chen
Mother’s Rules by Yalie Saweda Kamara
Your Task || 10 minutes
List 30 external observations in 10 minutes in as simple, objective words/phrases as possible. Note: don’t make it poetic, don’t even try. Don’t write your thoughts or perspective on it.
Pick what calls to you [pick a level of foraging that you feel drawn to]
Take a quick walk outside (a quick one around the block/down the street and back)Walk around the space you’re in (open cluttered drawers, medicine cabinets, piles of unknown items, shelves, books, old notebooks)
Scan open tabs, history, photos app, texts
Bonus: Find something you hadn’t noticed before (small, big, significant, not - ex. billboard, care instructions, name of gym, website footnote…)
If you need a reference of how to use the activity, here’s mine:
Mad-libs with borrowed inspiration from the images above
_ is no longer valid
Something about your _ made us think you were a __
Welcome to _ beach
poop outdoors
is a cheap tearjerker
, as I'm suffering from goodbye
Mash-ups titles / first lines ideas from the images above
Alarmed Stairway doesn’t know how to scream
Discreet exit through Alarmed Stairway
Safety card for fragile artifact
Abandoned bear in business hotel play area
Bot leave letter
Write-time || 15 minutes
Prompt: What is there now that wasn’t there before?- Show us the layers or
- Take us on the route
Forage Round 2 || Sensory Walk
Reading || 15 minutes
Pick one poem. Write down what made you pick the one you picked. Write one which sensory element it activated for you and how - texture, sound, color, smell.
Somewhere, she’s learned - Leah Naomi Green
On Eid We Slaughter Lambs & I Know Intimately the Color - Safia Elhillo
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities - Chen Chen
What the Body Gives Away - Saba Keramati
Task || 10 minutes
Pick a color - challenge yourself to find 10 or more things in that color and list them or pick a sense (texture or smell) - challenge yourself to discover that texture or smell in 10 or more things, first-hand, no imagination (ex. crunchy, prickly)
Bonus: Create a new color/smell/texture descriptor based on what you notice (ex. Cheez-it stained mouth for color)
Pick what calls to you:
Take a quick walk outside, take the same route again / a new turnWalk around the space you’re in (open cluttered drawers, medicine cabinets, piles of unknown items, shelves, books, old notebooks)
Scan open tabs, history, photos app, texts
I picked yellow!
Write-time || 15 minutes
Prompt: Write a self-portrait as something you saw yourself in / write a stream of consciousness memory that was triggered- How many ways exist to describe the now-you? or
- Use the senses you foraged through to describe something you feel stuck about?
Bonus material
The spectacular is already here - On the sacred ordinary and the act of noticing
https://olafureliasson.net/exhibitions/ - Use of color in Olafur Eliasson exhibits
The weird little poem I ended up with with foraged language from dear friends & workshop participants: abeo-chimeka-tisdale, Mary Beth Becker, Jinal Doshi, Neecie, Emmi Dawne, Joe Rajani, Shivani Kumar & Darshita Jain.
Acknowledgements:
Thank you the wonderful humans who showed up to the workshop earlier this month, whose words have evidently made their way into my poems.
This workshop is part of a series of fundraisers for the Chicago Poetry Center’s 50th anniversary year, to help fund 50 poetry residencies for Chicago public school students. If you’ve read this far, I hope you consider donating any amount that is personally meaningful to you <3 Our goal is $2500 by February 2025 and I will keep updating this with the progress we make!
As of March 31st we have raised 1185$ with contributions from over 40 participants across 4 workshops and we are so grateful! Our live project for poetry month is Poems For The Get-Through, starting tomorrow.
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