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elemental, my dear watson

On 27 September 2006, I ran a Poets Cornered workshop and the theme I chose was Elements.

I started by talking about the different meanings of the word, about Elementals and faeries, the Periodic Table, and about the traditional elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire (in Chinese medicine there is a fifth, metal). I read out some dictionary definitions too, encompassing everything from mathematics, grammar, and chemistry, to optics and the weather.

I read out some poems, including Neon Lights, by Heather A Young, and Protactinium by Kath Perry, both from everypoet.com.

I also sang the beginning of Tom Lehrer's famous song, The Elements. Hear it with a flash animation at privatehand.

exercise

I wanted to make the exercise challenging, so decided that it would be a good idea to get people working collaboratively.

I split people into groups and let them brainstorm on their approach to working collaboratively.

Then, after 20 minutes to work on a shared poem, they discussed how this approach worked for them.

Finally, we coalesced, read the resultant works, and shared our feelings. Working with someone else to produce something original can be challenging and several approaches were employed.

Some groups separated and reformed several times, pooling contributions and combining whole sections, some alternated lines, and one group even alternated styles - one favouring long lines, whilst another just used a couple of words per stanza. I thought all these ways of working produced interesting results. Read tea cosy by Susi and me.

updated Wed 27 Sep '06   give feedback...

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: : © Mike Bliss 2009