This is the first poem I have written in a very long time - probably since GCSE English. We had a workshop on poetry, then we were let loose in the Whitworth Art Gallery, with a task of constructing a list of 16 objects that we found on our way. We then created a poem using these objects.
I feel like I learned a lot from this exercise. I love the fact that it made me write something I wouldn't otherwise have written. Writing this poem made me realise that it is so much easier to be creative when we have stimuli from the external environment. I will definitely use this technique when writing creatively in the future.
Here is my list of objects from the Whitworth Art Gallery:
- A T-shirt
- A piece of wood-work
- Coffee beans
- Chest of drawers
- Vinyl record
- Knitting needles
- A gold medal
- A choir stand
- Sketchbook
- Bath tub
- Mirror
- Coal
- Clock
- Old armchair
- Blanket
- Flat-cap
Poem: What I Will Need to Remember You:
A T-shirt pristine, ironed 3 times over,
An oak chest of drawers, built with a carpenter’s eye.
A dusty gold medal, a race once won,
A hazy mirror, not quite recognising the person staring back.
An armchair, the arms worn down where elbows once rested,
A soft blanket, rough around the edges,
Knitting needles needlessly waiting, still waiting.
Cold coal resting in the fireplace, longing to glow once more,
A flat-cap hanging helplessly on the coat stand, lingering in anticipation for a head to rest on.
A music stand, with manuscript still mounted,
A bath tub, where many generations have rested their souls,
A record player, with only one record,
A clock, standing still, time has stopped…for now.
-When constructing this poem, I realised I was unintentionally sculpting it around the figures of memories of my four grandparents: Nana, Grandad, Grananne and Umpah-