Jayne Warren's Poetry Writing Workshops

Here's what Jayne says about the poetry workshops she recently gave at the library. "I started off having the kids pick a color and then brainstorm ways to describe it without mentioning the name of the color i.e. "purple." They wrote about other things that were that color, memories connected to these colors, feelings they had about those memories. When they were done I explained that the reason I had done this was because poetry is a web of associations. Poets find ways to describe things in new ways so that readers can understand. They use traditional similes and metaphors but also subtext. We talked about when words aren't enough to describe things, when people substitute action, like if they're happy. This is what poets do, combine feelings and associations to create a full picture. Then I introduced the poem "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams. Most of the kids were against this poem or felt it wasn't poetic enough. They thought it was too simple. We talked about how this poem describes an apology about something that was enjoyed. They then wrote thier own apologies about something they had enjoyed doing at the time. We had poems about robbing banks, punching people, pushing sibling, watching too much tv, etc. They had a lot of fun with this exercise."