Hello to everyone out there in the Do Art Nation! We hope your creative projects are going incredibly well. It’s been an amazing year so far for us, as we have continued to bring Do Art to libraries, Park districts and schools all across the country.
For this week, I thought I would share an amazing story about some wacky poems that came out of a workshop in Norfolk, Nebraska. Last year we went out to Nebraska for poetry month. Often. Before doing poetry workshops, I will get nervous that people will not enjoy or engage with the material, but I have always been immensely gratified to see that people of all ages LOVE poetry, and love using words to express themselves.
Our wacky poems for the day come from a workshop just like this, in Norfolk Nebraska. A group of kids showed up for a poetry workshop. We talked about haiku, three line poems as well as five line poems, and then made poems together while we created a group project on the typewriter.
And the poems we created were nothing short of amazing! You can see a few poems right here, both made by the same kid. The poems emerged as part of a shared universe that the kids created as they took turns reciting poems that they created.
In each new poem, the main villain Peanut would continue to cause mischief. The other characters would try to stop peanut, but peanut would always return, whether from Venus, or being stomped by a banana Godzilla, and come back to cause more trouble. By the end, peanut had become… King!
It was a powerful reminder to me that poetry does not necessarily have to express serious or profound feelings. Poetry can absolutely do these things, but poetry can also be fun. Poetry can be whimsical, poetry can be silly. Poetry can be.. wacky!
We are super excited for more poetry workshops this year, especially in April. What wacky poems have inspired you? Let us know in the comments. And don’t forget to check out our website doartproductions.org for events, comics and more.
We will see you soon!
