Poetry Workshop: prompts and Responses - April 8, 2023

The first of two poetry events was held at the Franklin Public Library Saturday, April 8.  The second event, a Favorite Poem Reading is scheduled for April 29 will also be held at the Library from noon to 3 PM.

On Saturday, there was a choice of two workshops to respond to prompts and have some time to be creative and write. 

Camile Bernstein lead one group, Jamele Adams led the other group.

Camille's group worked on the concept of 'found poetry'. She provided bunches of textual material from which you could select your poems text and leave it in order or revise the order to make it work for you. You can find samples of her output on the Instagram accounts as follows:

• Fridge magnet haiku ->   https://www.instagram.com/fridgemagnetfoundhaiku/
• Ulysses found poems ->  https://www.instagram.com/ulyssesfoundpoems/ 
• 42 is the answer -> https://www.instagram.com/42is.theanswer/

Jamele's group worked from a series of writing prompts that he provided. He would give the prompt, set some time for us to write the response, then if we choose to share the response. The conversation around the responses was equally as good as the responses.

First prompt: you have a short period of time, what would you say to a person that you want to/need to…

Response as a ‘Long’ version (notes, plus)

First select the person

Then the setting

What is the stage

Purpose, reason

I am a poet cuz

Words matter; words

Convey ideas, thoughts

Reasons to be,

Reasons to strive

I write daily, more

Than multiple times

Within the day

Journalism is one

Path to my writing

Reporting on what

Matters, life matters

Life here in Franklin Matters 

Response as a sherku

Sherku: First prompt

poetry cuz

words matter

words convey

ideas, thoughts

journalism 

is one path

. . . . . .

Second prompt: What is your superpower? Write your superpower as a haiku

Response long version (notes, plus)

long distance runner

sweat no worry

shoes tied tight

socks smoothed 

one step, one stride

after another

joy in the doing

Haiku: distance runner

Shoes tied tight, socks smoothed

There is joy in the doing

Long distance runner

. . . . .

Write a Haiku of a superpower of another

Haiku: Jamele 

He's full of color

Brightly welcoming all folks

To comfy front porch

. . . . .

Jamele read one of his recent poems, "Believe" to which we were then asked to respond in whichever way we chose, haiku, or longer. I chose one of the new formats I am creating and working with. An almost complete version is shared here.

Part I (of 2)

Through the door

the window

walk or fly 

nothing possible

until you believe 

Mother child

mother daughter

relationship 

frames this life

until you believe 

The athlete

practices long

hard or not

will not succeed 

until they believe 

House cleaning advice

let the spouse

keep the memories

until you believe 

how do you 

tell someone a 

dream it's images

find words

Until they believe 

Two sides of the one coin

Two faces of one coin

Flipped still solid

Until you believe

When Part 2 is complete, it will be shared here as well.

For more about the event check out the Franklin Matters posting here ->

https://www.franklinmatters.org/2023/04/first-poetry-workshop-success-favorite.html