Grasping the movement

Look around and catch some movement with your eyes - it can be a living thing or an object. Then describe the movement. It can be rapid, uneven, delicate, slow to the point of being almost undetectable, or too fast to really witness.

 You can experiment with the layout of the text to add to what you're writing about. 

Here's my example (taken from our school environment):

Squirrel

It was the middle of a class - or was it atthe very start - a squirrel! said someone

A squirrel! came from the back row, a-

squirrel ricochetted down

the hall and off it went  -  off

through an open door, and back 

up, up the limbs

of the larch tree where one of us

had spotted her

in the first place -  it was

the end 

of term; we wanted more

of what she had out there

and so

we left the subject to unplot itself,

our hair tangled

with the soft needles

we laughed, and fell down 

as rain

And then

spring

came

It is... like what?

As a way of celebrating Earth Day, choose some part of nature and describe it by saying that it's like something else. Or that it is something else. 

I've chosen a shell.

A Shell

is a shape. It is a shade. A seal, broken. An equivalent of a bone. A home of someone who has left. A spiral. A staircase. One half of a two-part whole. It is a hole and a corridor. A cradle. A microbowl. A pink nail left in the sand. A white shard buried in a dune. A raven's beak's crescent moon. A stamp on the surface of a stone. A necessary stage. A story, lost and found. 

What's in a text? And what's in the two ones, put together?

Listen to the song "July Morning" by Uriah Heap:

https://youtu.be/grSWdLdp7po?si=xokUq7YtiUlMH6dg

and then listen to / read the poem "Journey" by Mary Oliver:

https://youtu.be/PW7KjF8mXPk?si=hJ02B8G9sN8qNA94

You can read the song lyrics here:

https://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,uriah_heep,july_morning.html

and the plain poem (with no music in the background) here:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5249/the-journey/

Brainstorm to find similarities and differences between the two texts. Consider these few questions (and, obviously, ask yours):

What is it about? Or, what's the first impression?

How does the music add to what's being told?

What's the time of the day / year in each text, and how does it matter?

Are there any colours? Specific elements?

What kinds of motion and stillness do you see? What purposes do they serve?

What draws your attention more than anything else (a line, an image, a word)?

What approaches to life does each text offer? 

What story is being told? Whose story might it be?

What's the most important thing in life?

Can the two texts, read together, bring a more whole picture of what life is about? Or do they contradict each other?

Have a beautiful journey.

Oppositions

Write a short poem of oppositions. Go for the obvious or for the less obvious... :) 

Here's my example:

What's the opposite of a kiss?

                              - a bite
The opposite of green? Antarctic white

Of a train? a pile of broken bikes
Of a birthday cake? a funeral, or Finnegan's Wake

What is the opposite of a fence? an open space

The opposite of an I? the Uni-verse 



(The task was found in The Pocket Muse by

Monica Wood)

Translating a colour into images (and sensations)

Choose a colour and translate it into images and sensations.

Here's my example:

BLUE

Blue is a lake. Some exotic sea. The Pacific. The sky, vast. It is my father's eyes, my sister's eyes, and mine. A scarf. Also, Portuguese tile mosaics. A magic fish.

The smell of fresh air. A breeze; the time between the last day of winter and the first day of spring.

Its taste? Nothing in particular. Or, maybe, the taste of an icicle. Something that was strong, and got rarefied.

It feels like traveling by plane. Distance, distancing. Touching cosmic space. It feels like a lot of water between your palms, a lot of time at your fingertips.

It sounds like silence. Like a bird flying. Or, like a seawave coming to the shore and going back.

Blue means waiting for something to happen or someone to come. But it also means quiet and calm. Like there's never been any noise in the Universe.