Yesterday I made my first poetry mini-workshop video with the Artist in the School program (www.artistintheschool.ca) and videographers Marty O’Brian and Naomi Mark (www.midnightlight.ca). This was a first for me, and I had a great time. The AIS program is developing a series of short videos for use online by students who are not in the classroom on account of COVID-19.  The idea is to present arts activities that students can do at home with available materials, to supplement online and in-person instruction. The maximum length of the video is 20 minutes, and the maximum shooting time is one hour.  My proposal focused on poetry. It took me a while to narrow the focus to something that could be completed in 20 minutes; I settled on introducing students to the use of similes in the writing of poems. This seems like a tiny subject, but once I started to unpack it and translate it into a couple of doable activities, I found it was hard to keep it under 20 minutes. Another key challenge was to transform what I think of as an interactive process into a video (in which, of course, I can only imagine how students are receiving what I present). I have a good feeling about how it went, and I am looking forward to seeing the finished product next month.

The culmination of the mini-workshop is to challenge the students to create a poem that will make extensive use of similes, “colour words,” “size words” and “feeling words,” using a simple prescribed pattern based on repetition with variation. The point is not to impose a rigid template, but to ensure that students have a starting place and a clear roadmap for completing the exercise successfully, regardless of their verbal sophistication. Colourful nonsense poems are the most likely result, but surprising things can happen if students can relax their self-critical minds and play with words and thoughts.  Here is the sample poem that resulted for me:
 
Dream Poem
In my dream I saw a tiny house like a happy green pancake.                        
In my dream I saw a yellow sadness like a huge, confused cat.
In my dream I saw a large brown truck like a lonely bear.
In my dream I saw a happy thought like a gigantic pink pudding.
In my dream I saw a raven like a big, black, grumpy question mark.

Summer Solstice
 
The sun comes up on Solstice day,
The bright commander of the sky!
He acts as if he means to stay,
O’er the horizon riding high.
For now we stand at summer’s height,
And all before us we can mark
The days of almost endless light,
The nights that barely kiss the dark.
 
The sun comes up on Solstice Day;
His golden light he gladly spills
Upon the river’s shining way,
Upon the forest and the hills.
And though my heart be slow to rise,
And though I’ve kept my curtains drawn,
I’ll heed the summons of the skies,
I’ll learn the lesson of the dawn.
 
I’ll praise the sun while he is here,
But never with a grasping soul,
Because the turning of the year
Is not a thing I can control.
I’ll celebrate the dance of light,
And when the endless summer ends
Into my home I’ll welcome night:
The moon and stars will be my friends.
 
By Tom Lips, ©June 2020

A Whitehorse Raven
 
If I could be any bird, I’d be
a Whitehorse raven,
blessed with the heft of a hen,
yet sleek when airborne
 
playful as a human child, or sometimes
ominous
a portent of prophecy
a black, dancing gracenote
in the spare-boned symphony of sky.
 
If I could be any bird, I’d be
a Whitehorse raven,
ruffling yet unruffled,
shrugging off cold so deep
it cracks the plastic parts of cars
 
battling other birds for
 broken meats stuck to the sidewalk
cocking at passersby
an ancient, impertinent eye.

                                                                                            © Tom Lips, January 2020