Poetry and Creative Writing Workshop

October 2nd- November 13th

la.ucrso@gmail.com

What you need to know: Dates: October 2nd- 13th of November, 7 weeks in total. Weds, 9:30am-11:30am, room 309

Details: Curso libre: 3,000 colones paid at Registration in the Administration. BRING ME

YOUR RECIEPT next class or you can leave it for me in the lab office. You can miss only one class, if you want to get the certification You do not have to sign up for the curso libre to participate in the workshop- if you

would rather not pay or would rather drop in on classes, that is fine.

Materials: Please friend Laura on facebook so that I can invite you to our facebook group. Blog with all materials, plus interesting articles and links:

ucrsocreative.wordpress.com Physical materials are in folder 15 in the copy center.

Final presentation of work: Coffee house and poetry reading Creating print versions of the poem to distribute at the event Possibly publishing work on a blog online

Poetry is:

 Why study poetry? What does poetry give us?• It teaches word economy. Don’t waste words. Find

most effective way to express your idea, thought, feeling, message, etc.

• A form of Social protest• Social commentary• It can make you smile or laugh: it elicits emotions• Importance of vivid imagery: show, don’t tell• Express a hard to express thought or feeling.

Makes you FEEL. • It teaches you to slow down and reflect because

it is often less straightforward than prose.• It can teach you about a place or a time period

that you don’t know much about: new perspectives.

Personal Expression

Creative and Descriptive Language

Themes to date- Literary Tools:

PersonificationShape poems

Grammar usageSimile

Rhyme schemes

Important vocab words:

Verse: n. a single metric line in a poetry composition

Stanza: n. a unit within a larger poem. Two or more lines usually characterized by a pattern of meter, rhyme, and/or number of lines.

Literary tools:

Shape poems: the visual appearance of a poem is a deliberately designed, perhaps contributing to the meaning of the poem.

Personification: giving an object or an idea human or living characteristics. Example: The wind sings through the trees.

Simile : A figure of speech in which two essentially dissimilar things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as. Examples: He eats like a pig. Your eyes shine as bright as the sun.

Rhyme schemes: End rhymes: when the end of a line rhymes with the end of another line.Internal rhymes: when rhymes occur within lines.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burstInto that silent sea.

Furrow: a rut, groove, or trail in the ground or some surface. A wrinkle.

True rhymes or exact rhymes: when final vowel and consonant sounds (or the final syllables in longer words) are exact matches to the ear. Examples: “boy” and “toy”; “smart” and “art”; “fellow” and “yellow”; “surgery” and “perjury”

Off-rhymes or slant-rhymes: part of the final sound matches exactly, but part doesn’t. Off-rhymes use assonance and consonance.

Assonance: where the rhyme involves similar vowels, but different consonants. Examples: “fate” and “saint” have a similar “a” sound or “sing,” “lean,” and “beat” have similar “e” sounds.

Consonant rhymes: where the rhyme involves similar consonants, but different vowels. Examples: “work” and “spark” share the “k” sound or “slip” and “swipe” share the “p” sound.

Alliteration: The same consonants at the beginning of the word. Example: Laura loves to listen to loud love songs on lazy days.

http://static.designspiration.net/data/l/1559445040775_1NEb7HKa_l.jpg

Poetic FormsLimerick

HaikuRengaOde

Sestina

Haiku or HokkuA tradition Japanese poetry form with a total of seventeen syllables divided into three verses (or lines):

five syllablesseven syllablesfive syllables

Haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression. Traditionally written in the present tense, haiku focused on associations between images and often dealt with nature or the changing of seasons. Often, it included a “kigo” or season word. Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of renga, an oral poem, generally 100 stanzas long, which was also composed syllabically.

As the form has evolved, many of these rules- including the 5/7/5 practice- have been routinely broken. However, the philosophy of haiku has been preserved: the focus on a brief moment in time, a use of provocative, colorful images, an ability to be read it in one breath, and a sense of sudden enlightenment and illumination.

With just a few words, they call attention to an observation and in effect say, "Look at this" or, "Think about this.” The haiku calls the reader's attention to the story behind the observation.

From time to timeThe clouds give restTo the moon-beholders.- Bashō

CONFIDENCE       (after Bashō)

Clouds murmur darkly,   it is a blinding habit—gazing at the moon.- Philip Appleman

An old pond! A frog jumps in—the sound of water.- Bashō

An old silent pond...A frog jumps into the pond,splash! Silence again.- Bashō

crumbling tar, track lapsguava pulpy sneaker treadsasphalt fruit loops

popsicle clown lipssausage fingered baby lumpschurro stuffed and puffed

http://www.kristinegeorge.com/poetry-is-a-moment-in-time.html

http://vimeo.com/thebeautyofasecond

“The Beauty of a Second”

Observations from the videoWhile we are watching the video, write down very brief observations about different images (write just enough to help you remember what you saw). Then, after we have finished watching the video, you will have time to fill in your feelings and reactions to each image you wrote down.

Observations Feelings and Reactions

Red moss stump- ants Busy, Work, FallOil dripping down Pollution, waste

everywhere, can’t stop it spreading

Laundry line in breeze Free, wide-open, clean, peace

Cat’s eyes opening Sleepy, cuddly, my cat, nostalgia, missing

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5782#sthash.mOm2a6DL.dpuf

http://www.poetryteachers.com/poetclass/lessons/haiku.html

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-term/Haiku%20(or%20hokku)

http://www.kristinegeorge.com/poetry-is-a-moment-in-time.html

http://www.poetryteachers.com/poetclass/lessons/haiku.html

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/five-creative-ways-teach-haiku

For further browsing about haikus and teaching haikus: