Last night I divided my students up into groups after talking about specific details. I then sent them outside with the assignment of finding four specific details, three for the group and one to bring back to me. They had ten minutes. When they came back they gave me my details and then they had fifteen minutes to work a poem that included the details they picked up outside. I had to write my own poem with the detail each group gave me. It took about ten minutes but I'm actually kind of happy with it. It could use a title, but hey, other than that it's not bad for about ten minutes work with no idea what I was going to be working with, etc. Here are the details the class gave me and the resulting poem:
1) Striped Crosswalk 2) hardened black gum 3) iron horse 4)weird nosy people
1) Striped Crosswalk 2) hardened black gum 3) iron horse 4)weird nosy people
I stumble on the striped crosswalk
And blame the hardened, blackened
Speedbump of gum and not the
Shadows and the grid, like a cow
Who can't cross a painted cattle guard.
People stare, weird, nosy people
Who should watch their own feet,
The obstacles that block their paths,
Instead of watching me. I flush and glow
In the darkness, my shame hidden by
Sodium light and low-hanging bangs.
I'll mount the iron horse that watches
Over the quad and all these souls
And race away to a place I know
Where I am iron, and I am steel,
And nothing will shame me
And nothing will stumble but the fear
That runs before me.
