A Poem A Day Keeps the Creative Blocks At Bay

The Chinese were masters at writing poems from daily experience... The Chinese wrote poems of observation (looking carefully) and contemplation (simultaneously noticing one's thoughts and feelings). They were examing life closely for the lessons it would teach and its beauty. - via River of Words teachers' handout

In my writing workshop this past weekend, the instructor said that many Chinese write short poems daily as a meditative exercise in flexing their right brain's creativity muscles. Prose writing is still fairly left brained, she noted; and that certainly rings true for me in my own blogging.

We can create simple poems with some "triggers" to jog images. To try your hand at this, write on slips of papers things like: "Celestial: Space, Sun, Moon, Comet, Milky Way", "Spiritual", "Animal Kingdom", "Mineral Kingdom", "Seasonal Details", "Elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water and its forms", "Plant Kingdom", "Self: Body, Mind, Emotion, Imagination", "Time of Day", "Weather", "Place", and "Man-Made Things". (You might want to create a few more.)

Then randomly pull a slip of paper and write a line. Go with the first image that comes to you even if it's unrelated. The point of the theme on a slip of paper is to be an effortless trigger not a restraint. If you thought about coffee for "Animal Kingdom", go with that. Be sparse and condense in your writing. Distill. The last line should be a commentary, summary, question, or comparison to tie the poem together.

Writing from life experiences offers students an excellent opportunity to develop a "voice" in their writing. The four aspects of "voice" are: 1) awareness 2) true - not fake - feeling 3) intimacy (closeness to the subject of the poem 4) memorability (something that will make us remember the poem, for example: a strong or fresh image, a unique observation or insight, word choices or phrasing). - via River of Words teacher's handout

The following poem used the following triggers - outdoor setting, weather, animal kingdom, plant kingdom, and question/contrast/comment closing - and I wrote it on the fly during the workshop:

December 25

Green slung chair, broken shells surround.

Dark sun streaks burst forth through

Royal clouds, fan down to shimmering sea.

Island dog lifts his sleepy head, heaves sigh.

Casuarinas stretch, shadows still in the heat.

Did the gypsy fisherman hear the sun whisper:

Tomorrow sea like angry dragon?

Comments

[Colleen]

I love this exercise!

It reminds me of the Russell Edson exercise from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones: you park your butt down and write whatever comes to you, stream of consiousness-style. Preferably ten times.

Whether it makes sense or not, the "crazy" stuff that lies beneath the surface is so much more interesting that what we can dream up, it's always a better way to kick off a writing session.

[Steve S]

Good exercise. Nice writing. Keep up the good blogging!

[vikk]

I listened to poet and novelist Ron Koertge several years ago talk about how he wrote a haiku every morning instead of writing in a journal or doing some warm-up freewriting. I did find it to be as your workshop teacher suggested: a daily meditative practice.

[Len]

That’s an interesting observation. Having both Chinese and English poetic experience, I would say the main difference between the Chinese and English (or western language in general) poems is the nature of these languages. Chinese is an extremely concise language. A 5- or 7-character line may have to be translated into a short paragraph in English, if you want to convey the full meaning. Chinese is a very fluid language. There is little grammatical rule, especially in poetry – no tense, no conjugation, no singular or plural, no gender... But one word or two can open up an entire space of imagination.

[namrita]

u r dump syco poms you write