Open Notebook with Open Minds and Open Hearts
Last Saturday, Boston Progress Arts Collective had it’s first Open Notebook (ON) writing workshop. It was a cozy group of five people including our inaugural ON facilitator Emily Lawsin, a vibrant mixture of different perspectives and voices. During those two hours that seemed like a wondrous, immersive microcosm of lyrical personal landscapes, we considered “I Am From” script/template poems (poems crafted from a given structure) written by youth as well as established poets and then began writing and sharing our own, drawing each other into scenes of childhoods — the people, places, food, colors and scents that filled them. Though I have often been dismissive of adherence to specific literary forms, I was amazed (like I was with Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai’s One-minute-interiew+haiku exercise) to find what we could discover and develop within a given form.
To wrap up this ON session, we worked on a collaborative metaphor exercise in which we’d each write ten metaphor or simile beginnings (e.g. the cold night was like), then give these to one of the other participants and write ten metaphor or simile endings (e.g. an old dog-eared magazine) without knowing what metaphors or similes we were ending! Our homework was then to write a poem, story, song, anything with some of those metaphors. Here are a couple I’ve got: Time was a hot and stuffy bus; writing fate into flip flops slapping the sidewalk.
Sound like something you’d like to participate in? Then join us for our next Open Notebook writing workshop! Every session will have its own unique atmosphere, but there will be writing and sharing. Check back on BPRLive.org or BostonProgress.org for more information.
Last 5 posts by sudo
- Places I've eaten at with Brian Chan, and sometimes Diana Wan: Sapporo Ramen - March 8th, 2010
- Rewolf: Asobi Seksu, you're even more mesmerizing! - March 1st, 2010
- An Evening with Sophia Moon: March 3rd - February 25th, 2010
- DUMB PROFESSOR: the latest from Randall Park - February 24th, 2010
- TONIGHT: David Choi at Cafe 939 - February 22nd, 2010
