May 2024 - Workshop Shit

In this month’s workshop, we revisited more broadly a concept that we’ve explored targeted and detailed workshops before: the additional five senses. The traditional five senses are those tangible senses through which humans can measurably process physical stimuli: sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell. However, as complex beings, our understanding of the world around us cannot simply boil-down to tangible physical input, and we might often find ourselves keenly aware of something that isn’t quite measurable. To that end, the idea of the five additional senses has taken root, recognizing a sense of balance (Equilibrioception), a sense of bodily awareness (Proprioception), a sense of movement (Kinesthesia), a sense or awareness of pain (Nocioception), and a sense of the passage of time (Chronoception). Through these extra senses, we can start to communicate how we can feel the passage of time, or how it’s possible to be aware of each part of the body in relation to others.

In past workshops, we’ve worked individually with one or two of these additional senses, but for May we worked to examine and incorperate all five of them into our promt and responses. Poets first generated a set of images corosponding to each of the five additional senses, and then passed prompt questions to one another to provide a sort of launching-point for their responses.

Prompt Questions:

"How many eternities are in one metric forever?"

“In the liminal moments between wakefulness and sleep, how do you react to the transition?”

“When the star falls, burning out in spectacular fashion, what is remembered and what is forgotten?”

“Where do your dreams wander when you're in an airplane flying high home?”

Prompt Steps:

1)    There is no prompt poem this month. Jump into the next steps without a safety net, or select a poem that you find relevant or evocative to help jump-start your thinking about this prompt.

2)    Consider the five additional senses listed above, and how they differ from what are traditionally considered the five senses. Are these senses that can be measured? Are they senses that only complex animal life can experience, or are trees and grass aware of time passing? Ask yourself as many questions about them as possible.

3)    Using a graphic like the table above, begin to brainstorm images evocative of each of the five additional senses.

4)    If doing this prompt with a group, pass questions to one another to give each other something to think about as you write. If you’re doing this prompt solo, then feel free to draw from any questions you might have thought up in step 2, or ask anyone nearby to ask you any random question. Or use any of the four questions above that we generated during the workshop.

5) Spend about 15 minutes freewriting and see what you can come up with. All styles and forms are encouraged, and there is no need to find an ending within the 15-minute timeframe (this is a first draft, and you may edit to your heart’s content at any later time). If you come up with a response that you’re happy with and feel like sharing, feel free to post it in the comments below.

Prompt responses:

Andrew’s Response:

“In the liminal moments between wakefulness and sleep, how do you react to the transition?”

A dream that hasn’t started yet pulls-down

On every limb: sleep-phantoms rest on me,

And I am in the sea beside the town …

Floating in fog-light: paralized, but free.

Worlds form and fracture as fast minutes pass:

Trees wind-dance, cars rush by, another heartbreak

That bleeds tones only, and dead burning grass

Along a toxic shore in bombing’s wake.

There is a statue, arms long lost, among

The tombstones … thick with moss and hungry vines …

Can stone feel phantom limbs? They built it wrong.

And every tombstone’s name’s just faded lines …

A dream that hasn’t ended yet shuts-off,

And every waking thought is “If … If … If …”

Rikhav’s Response(s):

Koutas for the Clouds

I offer this poem for you

Quicksilver sky kings

Floating in the liminal

Silent observers

Amalgamated conscience

Affixed to effervescence

Reconstituted above

Built to fall apart

Seated in silver silence

Sardines a can

Tin tube thoughts soaring through space

Bright horizon bound