July 2024 - Workshop Shit!
In our workshop back in March 2024, we explored the idea of personification as a device used in poetry. For that prompt we focussed on assigning human qualities to an abstract idea, and we imagined Time as a character. Our responses centered around bringing that character to life.
Personification is used in a number of ways in poetry however. In the poem linked to below by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the narrator does the oposite of what we explored in March. Rather than crafting a human character from an abstract idea, he instead takes on the persona of a natural landscape, and in a way transforms himself into the thing to be personified.
We revisited personification this month from a different angle, focusing instead on the personification of a physical space (perhaps a natural body as Tennyson did, or a manmade structure) or an animal, and embodying the subject. Using the table below, poets brainstormed first some natural or manmade places, and then we came up with some ideas about what those places might do and say. Lastly, to give ourselves an extra starting point, we came up with a few questions that could be incorporated into the responses.
Prompt Poem:
Brainstorming:
Questions:
Who am I?
Where do we go from here?
What would it be like to meet for the first time?
What do you know that I don’t.
Prompt Steps:
1) Review the blog post from 03/2024, and get a sense for the idea of personification.
2) Take a moment to compare/contrast the prompt poems for March 2024 and July 2024. What makes them different? What similarities do they have?
3) Using a table like the one shown above, brainstorm some ideas about natural bodies, and about what they might say and do were they human.
4) In addition to personifying natural bodies, think of a few questions that can help stimulate your mind, and which may or may not have answers.
5) Spend fifteen minutes on a Free Write. Don’t worry about finishing the poem or about writing the best poem: this is about getting ideas down on paper. Feel free to revisit your first draft to edit and rework the poem as you see fit. If you end-up with a piece you’re happy with and want to share, then feel free to use the chats below to post it.
Prompt responses:
Andrew’s Response:
Where do we go from here, now history’s died?
We knew our purpose once. We knew the way!
Our towers troubled thieves. Our walls replied
To threats with somber strength. We lived each day!
We housed the homeless, and grand princes too;
And hosted parties, plagues, and ghosts at night;
Told stories of some mighty pasts (and few
Of humble starts); and glistened in lamp light.
But now the wind weeps through our bones and scars,
And evidences crumble, and decay
Of souls, who softly slept here under Mars …
Of festivals and feats that fade away.
We’re left but to remind whow kin kills kin …
Let passing no-ones wonder: “Well, who’ll win?”
Rikhav’s Response:
Flamenca for the Sahara
My sirocco swept sands
Flare with fiery warmth
A heated halo
Only rarely forestalled
By passing thunderstorms