National Poetry Month – Christopher Lehman

Recap of Week 4: Concrete the Concept

For our last week we moved from little to big. Instead of aiming to simply retell an experience or explain a feeling, we talked about really taking on an intellectual project – giving ourselves our own writing assignment to attempt to put to paper a larger concept. Through this we also talked about the essential need in revision to “let go” of a first draft and pick up a whole new one.

Mentor poems:

A Hymn to Childhood by Lee Young-Li – please click the little play button on this link and listen to Lee Young-Li describe his “preoccupation” before he reads his poem.

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r by e.e. cummings – think of the project he has given himself and imagine the decisions he had to make.

Last Night I Saw the City Breathing by Andrew Fusek – step into his shoes and consider what goals he may have had as he wrote.

We then workshopped original poems from our final two TeacherPoets, Laurie and Audra.

Thanks again for these fun four weeks. And thanks for all you do for children and for one another.

Chris

teacher-poets

Hi TeacherPoets.

This series has been such fun–uplifting, inspiring, and just great to steal some time from busy schedules to write. It is also shocking how quickly time flies! It feels like it was just moments ago when our first session was starting online, now we’re already in our fourth and final week together!

If you have missed any of the series or care to catch up, you’ll find the full video playlist here (our sessions have been viewed almost 500 times to date):

Recap of Week 3: Idea are Puzzle Pieces

During this past Saturday’s session we talked about specificity and zooming in, but this time looked at how poets often string together these little moments to tell a larger story or share a bigger idea. I showed how we can study mentor poems by drawing boxes around moments–to see where their pieces are. Then shared a draft of a poem piecing together different puzzle pieces (in my case: my daughter chewing the noses off her toys when she was little as one piece and Geppetto and Pinocchio as the other piece).

We read:

Mosquitoes by Aimee Nezukumatathil
It Took All My Energy by Tony Wallace

We also workshopped three more original poems from the TeacherPoets live group and through that experience touched on a few more tips for ourselves: don’t shy away from telling more of the “who” (our readers seemed to really want to know that each week), and consider how you control time or give more clues about time shifts (another comment that often has come up).

Assignment for Week 4: Concrete the Concept

For our last week we’ll go even larger. Instead of aiming to simply retell an experience or explain a feeling, we will talk about really taking on an intellectual project – giving ourselves our own writing assignment to attempt to put to paper a larger concept: “I want to try and represent…” or “I have been thinking a lot about…”.

Mentor poems:

A Hymn to Childhood by Lee Young-Li – please click the little play button on this link and listen to Lee Young-Li describe his “preoccupation” before he reads his poem.
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r by e.e. cummings – think of the project he has given himself and imagine the decisions he had to make.
Last Night I Saw the City Breathing by Andrew Fusek – step into his shoes and consider what goals he may have had as he wrote.

Workshopping This Week:

This Saturday we have our final two TeacherPoet’s original poems! Please download each of these, write all over them, and be ready to share your comments live on Saturday. These poems are in draft form and ready for your input: