I loved the variety of the examples on here. It was eye-opening to see the different directions each prompt could take. It would be great to have a gallery where you could also learn about how each poem was made it (e.g. tools used). More examples would help.
It was a great excuse to go outside, look up the maps of where you are, and also look into the history of your place. I think this kind of reflection is something that makes us appreciate our location more. It’s also a good activity for having education in the wild-- concentrating on expression, remembering, and storytelling around place. It’s a great excuse to get people to be reflexive thinkers, think about self expression, and being aware of the wealth of information/community around them. Map literacy is a great skill to build on, too! Learning about compass directions, street layout, and topography is a survival skill that we don’t often think of teaching children.
Some reflections on the zine…
I thought the zine was nicely put together, but the sizing made it hard to read or too busy at times. For instance in the printed version, on the Finding Your Way page, I can’t read the statue’s name that is highlighted. Also, on Shaping Space page it’d be nice if the orange trees graphic could be darkened, and maybe a different example chosen for the shape poem, cause it can hardly be read. The extra graphic at the top of the Phillis Wheatley page detracts from her poem a bit as instead I spent time trying to figure out what it was. Also, as Tara noted, the hashtag on the last page should be #spatialpoetry. I also agree with Tara that it would be nice to add some poets that are recognizable for slightly younger audiences.
Personal/program reflections…
I need to brush up on my poetry! Having a book or online resource available during this program for participants highlighting different poetry styles would be a nice reference. Or maybe even a poetry warmup session? I’d like to have physical maps available for participants, and think the visitor’s center would be useful for some town maps. They’d also highlight landmarks, etc. which could be useful for different prompts.
I appreciated the prompts as I think they allow the participant to take the exercises in different directions. Thinking about locational poetry, places that were special to me, photos mixed with maps.
And for good measure, here’s one last poem. My town has about a million and one roundabouts, so a little haiku about roundabouts. Plus, I used carbon paper to trace the many ways I’ve reached my home lately. I placed the graph paper, then carbon paper, then a printed map on top, and traced the routes on the map. I love the disassociated graphic it created, which is obviously still a map/route, but not totally recognizable as one given place.
Take second exit
at roundabout, then take third
roundabout exit.
Ryan! I am just now reading through all the posts. These resources are amazing and really brilliant. I loved Nogues’ book effort and the strav.art resource and the public space poems. I am going to add these my list of resources for this project! Thank you so much for sharing them!
