I have written very little poetry in recent months (maybe even years), but Stories of Hope and Home have spent many of our Friday afternoon sessions in recent weeks, dabbling in poetry. We have produced plenty of beautiful snippets. Most have remained just that, fragments expressing a particular reality in a particular moment.
Some of it has unpacked serious themes and wrestled with the depth of human emotions, but there has been plenty of laughter and levity. It led to a moment which I suspect will live long in Stories group tradition ... when, in the context of trying to collect a wide variety of abstract nouns I confidently proclaimed "only one of you can have hope!"
Cue much hilarity! Beneath the laughter, I know the cries of "but hope is all we have" were in fact heartfelt reflections on a dark reality: but I do trust that they know, really, that I am not in the business of restricting hope; that on the contrary I try, at least, to play my small part in helping to fan its fragile flames.
Anyway, a couple of the prompts / models I shared with them, I took away to also play with. These are the, possibly still partially incomplete, results.
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These were the result of playing the "Surrealists Game" which is something I picked up from Kate Clanchy's book, "How to Grow your own poem" but she is very clear that it is not her own original idea. We collected nouns, both concrete and abstract and then, on separate papers, wrote their definitions. Both packs were shuffled and then we took turns to turn over one of each and and announce the newly matched pairs. Some don't work at all, but a surprising number were either very funny or very profound or in some way both. We each took one of these words with its new definition to inspire a short poem. These two were created from the pairs I chose:
A wall is
"When there is no light to brighten the space"
Darkness is everywhere
I cannot see
A wall is
Solid and unyielding
And here we stand
Backed against this wall
Paralysed
Until
I reach out and feel for a handle
And open a door
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A blessing is "an animal you take for a walk each day"Kept close, held tight
Silent
A blessing lives and breathes,
Reaching towards the other
Yearning to be shared
And then
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This was a different week, when everyone was invited to write, on slips of paper, people, school subjects, objects, living things, places, concepts, and times/dates.
Each of us then selected one from each category and wrote what it had taught us:
I have learned so much
From my first grade teacher I have learned that the details fade but the essentials last forever.
From maths I have learned that there is joy to be found in the solving not just in the solution.
From a rock I have learned that even structures that seem solid and permanent can be worn away by a single raindrop.
From the mountains I have learned that you can be firmly on the ground and still reach for the sky
From hate I have learned that love can also be learned
From a pencil I have learned that you can serve your purpose even if you are a little bit broken and a little bit blunt: but you have to be willing to make your mark.
From Mondays I have learned that we can always begin again.
From all of these and others I have learned there will always be more to learn.
