The Lighthouse Writers Top-Secret Blog
All the latest news, ideas, and opinions from Denver's Independent Literary Center: lighthousewriters.org
Frozen Waffles and the Cantaloupes of Doom
One of things I enjoy about Lighthouse poets is that, for the most part, they have gotten past the embarrassment of calling themselves poets. It’s a loaded word, poet, conjuring the simple pretentiousness of Jim Morrison’s tombstone or the preciousness of an ostrich feather quill and a pot of lavender ink. But poets we are and poets we call ourselves, and, for the most part, we get away with it.
Another group that gets away, quite handily, with poetry are the Lighthouse youth writers. Some 12 to 17 of them (depending on the week) just completed a 4-week session of formal attempts and impromptu wonders in the art of poetry. Under the skilled direction of Malinda Miller and the applied randomness of JD Frey, they demonstrated a talent for taking poetry concepts and making them sing in unique voices.
Some highlights (for me at least):
- Witnessing the composition of 17 triolets by 17 different poets in 17 minutes.
- Hearing the results of found poems created with scraps of quotes from other poets and various bits torn from magazines. (Including a poem featuring the above-mentioned “cantaloupes of doom.”)
- Playing Metaphorhead (the metaphor-making game) with a crowd of writers more than willing to go out on a limb and compare Hondas to mothers, poetry to twist-ties and watermelon seeds, and yogurt to…well I can’t remember, but it was a good one.
- Hearing intelligent and thoughtful work on subjects ranging from Syria to gerbils, crime to starry crowns, thwarted romance to frozen waffles (described quite well, btw, as “categorized containers for syrup.” )
- The ongoing debate over what rhymes with orange.
The session culminated last night in a hastily arranged but well-attended reading in the Lighthouse Grotto before an audience of parents and various other poetry groupies. I for one could not have been prouder.
Way to go poets!
About jdiegofrey
You’re doing the work of Zeus and others on Mt. Olympus. Yay for poets. Yay for poets teaching poets. Yay for all of us.
I second the yays! Those young poets (and you teacher poets) gave me goosebumps and inspiration many times over.
So glad I was a part of this!