BLACK OUT POETRY...

During the school holidays, amongst the balloons and bubbles, the puppet storytime and wrapping kids up as mummies...I ran a black out poetry workshop. My first.

It was such fun and it left me amazed at how imaginative and creative kids can be.



A very excited group arrived, and interestingly none of them had created black out poetry before. A few had written poetry and one little girl (our ages were 9 plus) had quickly written a poem that morning as she thought that would be needed.

I quickly gave an explanation, and showed them examples.

We talked of finding an anchor...that one word that would be your starting point. And how to then scour the page for words that could be tied in.


We worked on an example on the board...showing how words can be in the same wavelength.

LOVE ---They offered up chocolate, boys, friends, kiss, coffee, family, dog etc

Or how words can be opposite and create something interesting---they gave me denial, hate, pain, hurt.




For a lot of them the hardest part was tearing pages out of books (never fear, I made sure the other books in the library couldn't hear the screams). And these books were discarded, beyond saving.

There was such an intense silence in the room, as page after page was scoured. Then the 'aha' moment as they began circling. Only one spent nearly the entire hour reading page after page. In the last ten minutes she found her words and an amazing poem was born.



I found it very interesting in the younger group of participants that they created longer narrative pieces.

The older ones, the teens, had very strong minimal pieces. Three or four very carefully chosen words.



The session ended with everyone (except one) creating two poems, and eager to go home and create more.

Not only did the children totally enjoy it, but the parents gave some wonderful feedback as well.

It was a great chance for me to enjoy the pure creativity that kids are capable of. Not a piece of technology in sight. Merely some pages, pencils and black pens.

Amazing.

I was left feeling excited by the possibilities. Eager to search for hidden poems in the everyday.


Vicki 

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