Suggestions for Week 7 LJ Entries

First years: you could develop any one of those poems/ prose pieces that you started writing on Friday in class: the Ekphrastic poems…. if, for whatever reason you missed the class this week, you could write a commentary on Mirikitani’s “Breaking Tradition” the poem that we all spent some really good time on in tutorials. I would love also to see some of you attempt your own “Breaking Tradition” poem… there were so many interesting accounts from many of you about YOUR relationship to your mothers and/or fathers… this would a fabulous subject for you to explore in a poem of your own. And I really do want to encourage ALL of you to try your hand at writing a poem or two in the next few weeks. Writing your own poems is definately THE BEST WAY to understand how poetry works…. seriously…. you may even get some comments on your work from other “friends” in the group… or even from yours truly… so please give it a go… you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!!!!!

Second years: we plunged into the Russians this week…. and I sensed a strong response from many of you to the depth and magic of Tolstoy…. my suggestion for a writing task this week: write a letter to Tolstoy; tell him how he has made you think more deeply about some issues in your own life. Or write a letter to Mrs Illych commiserating with her and offering her support. Or write a poem in praise of Gerasim!

Third years: the fool, the fool, the fool, the fool…. write a short piece identifying the ways in the fool can help to expose the idiocies of the world…. or you might play the fool yourself and send up some absurdity in our way of life, in our media that needs to be soundly trounced….. or you might like to take a single line of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets and begin your own poem by quoting that single line and then building your own thoughts upon this…. this is an ancient and noble way of beginning a poem by the way… a tribute to the master and a way of initiating your own creativity…. or you might of course turn to anyone else’s LJ and write a helpful and supportive comment…. this might be especially useful for some struggling first or second year student…. play the good samaritan……
Or you might be inpired to write a poem or prose piece inspired by this wonderful piece of lunacy (earthacy!!!!!):

Ciao
MG