prompt 198 Child’s Play
For the final ten years of my employment, I worked as a free-lance Writing Instructor, teaching classes at area colleges (including the University from which I graduated), and in several Fine Arts Schools. My students were adults.
My classes were writing based and often included poetry. I facilitated one-day workshops and seminars, many of which were exclusively about writing poetry. I never told my adult students that the exercises I asked them to do were based in ideas I had found in books written about helping children learn how to write poetry. It was my personal practice to do those exercises right along with my students and those brief exercises sometimes found their way into my own writing. An example of that may be found here:
The second to last stanza is the complete response to an exercise in using an element of weather to define some aspect of ones own person. I had done the exercise in class two days before I wrote the above poem and it seemed to fall naturally into that space.
Recently, I found an online site that offers children (or anyone else) the experience of writing a poem by a fill in the blank type of method. The site is called Instant Poetry. click on their name to visit the site
In the left hand sidebar of the site, you will find numerous types of poems to choose from. Please try at least one or two of them. Then using one of them for a base, rework, revise, and rewrite it until you are satisfied with the results. Although this is essentially child’s play, you bring to it your own wealth of poetic experience and that can make for some very fine poetry. You might want to cite Instant Poetry somewhere in your post.
Thanks for joining me over the past month, and have fun as you continue to write,
Elizabeth
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Nice prompt. I hope to have a play with it again later. http://miskmask.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/reasons-without-reason/
Really well done Misky
Elizabeth
Fun to start the day playing like a child!
http://laughwithme45.blogspot.com/2014/01/i-came-across-an.html
Absolutely delightful Robyn,
Elizabeth
I liked the prompt, too. http://somethingsithinabout-annell-annell.blogspot.com
Who could resist the fireflies of childhood?
Elizabeth
I couldn’t find this post?
Try this,
http://somethingsithinkabout-annell-annell.blogspot.com/
Not a virtuoso piece
Tigers have a very special meaning for me, Irene, just as a hermit dwells in silence and spindly grasses,
Elizabeth
Very fun. Just what I’ve needed to get back into the groove.
http://tasmith1122.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/wwp-prompt-198-childs-play/
So glad you shared that fun with all of us,
Elizabeth
This one ran away laughing and kept tugging me along,
http://soulsmusic.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/advice-for-a-burgeoning-poet/
Elizabeth
Are we held “in the palm of God’s hand”?
I Mbosa A Láimhe
-Nicole
Yes, I believe we are, and especially you as you wrote this delightful addition to your ongoing tale,
Elizabeth
If hope were a color
It would be green like the grass in springtime
If hope were a feeling
it would feel like wrapping paper (with a present inside)
if hope was a smell
It would smell like something baking in the oven
If hope was a sound
It would sound like the little bells tinkling on the ice-cream truck when it turns up our lane.
(will work on more detailed ones later, this is fun!}
Marian, this is so nice… I do like this.
I couldn’t agree more with the vivid sense imagery you chose to define hope, particularly the smell of it, so glad you enjoyed it,
Elizabeth
Yes, you picked the best kind…the details that most everyone can identify with. Beautiful, Marian!
I loved your smell and sound of hope in particular.
I chose “Some of My Best Friends are Metaphors Poem” from Instant Poetry http://georgeplaceblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/carol/
Can’t beat a friend as good as a sister,
Elizabeth
Thank you Elizabeth for a wonderful site, and for hosting this month.
Mixed a few…
http://juleslongerstrandsofgems.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/wwp-198-formidable/
Ah yes Jules, the child we were definitely lives on inside of us,
Elizabeth
Well I didn’t write to as many of your prompt as I had intended to Elizabeth, but I did read them each time and am sure happy with the fun I had with this one. Thank you so much for hosting!! 🙂
http://wordrustling.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/finding-happy-and-curiosity/
And thank you for that treasure trove of spilled gold to be found in your words, Hannah. So glad you enjoyed it and had fun, I did as well,
Elizabeth