November 2023 – Workshop Shit!

For the workshop this month, poets engaged once again with the concept of the five additional senses, which we’ve explored in previous workshops (for more on the five additional senses, have a look at the blog posts from May, June, July, and September of 2023). This month, poets were encouraged to think about Kinesthesia – a sense of movement, particularly in regards to the observer’s own body.

In addition to thinking about this sense of physical movement, poets were also encouraged to think about alliteration and imagery in poetry. The three key concepts that this month’s workshop coalesced around are listed below.

1.     Imagery: An image is a sensual picture of something in the world, generally presented without comment.

2.     Alliteration: This is the poetic technique where a series of words have the same beginning sound, as in “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

3.     Kinesthesia: The sense of movement, especially of a person in their body, making progress in a particular direction, such as a dancer across the stage. Awareness of location, velocity, and direction are incorporated in this concept.

In the short poem below by Caren Krutsinger, we can see a densely-packed example of how all three of these concepts can work together.

Caren Krutsinger

She Is Back

Karla the kickback kindred kinesthetic witch from Kickapoo County

Ran back to Rustic Ranch when she kicked out Murray the Mountie.

The way she was running, we thought there might be a bounty.

She has a wildly weird wonderful reputation here in Kickapoo County.

With the above poem in mind, and an understanding of the three key concepts for this month’s workshop, poets brainstormed a list of images that incorporated alliteration and sought to evoke that sense of kinesthesia. The list from the workshop is provided below.

After compiling this list, poets spent about 15 minutes creating poems in a freewrite, conscious of those three key concepts, and with a large list of images to draw from for inspiration. Below, you’ll find some of the responses to the prompt, which show a range of examples with how poets approached the material.

COLLECTIVE BRAINSTORM

Write as many images of movement using alliteration (same beginning sounds) as you can, brainstorm fashion.

The Rules:

1)    Consider the sense of Kinesthesia: a sense of physical motion, particularly in regards to your own body.

2)    In the example poem by Caren Krutsinger, examine how alliteration, imagery, and motion are all used to create a vivid experience for the reader.

3)    Using a template like the one above, brainstorm a list of images, trying to incorporate alliteration and motion into the phrases.

4)    Using this list a inspiration, spend 15 minutes writing. Feel free to incorporate as many or as few of the images you’ve come up with, and to change and adapt any of these images to better suit the poem you’re writing … these are tools in the toolbox, and are not set in stone.

5)    If you are happy with the resulting poem, and if you feel like you want to share, then feel free to use the comments section below to post your response.

Douglas’ Response:

ALLITERATIVE KINESTHESIA

My body is naked of past or future,

Settled within the solar simulacrum of simulated skyscrapers,

Devoid of deviance,

Delighted by disaffection,

Free of deprivation,

Quiet in this skeletal skin,

Without expectation of the electrical elemental impulses pushing

Elision beyond emptiness.

Each muscle,

Each nerve ending,

Each vertebrae

Trembling today

With heaving, heckled harlotry headed to harangue heaven

For more music,

Maintains no place for dancing or doubting or diatribes –

The present is present in this presence,

Persistently playing piquant pipers to pick peppers for their own pedestals.

My body is a surfboard

Slicing through the sluice of time,

Sure to succeed in silence.

My body has no uniform to identify its identity;

Only unmoving quiet

Spreading sparkling across centuries

Of lecherous, licentious, libidinous liking

Like the imagination of a stone,

Hard-wired for hallucination of hallowed happenstance.

Andrew’s Response:

In visions (vanishing, but vainly laid

Before a bloodshot eye or banished brain)

We’ll see the Shrike – whose stark and soulful shade

Makes muted music while the dead are drained.

Up in the outlands (cleaving through cold clouds,

And searing sunbeams; where the world is worn;

The air is aging; and the south wind shrouds

A plague, and tempest, and tall towers torn

To pieces) there you’ll find the fiend.

Like adorations under arctic lights,

The Things arrange themselves. How they have dreamed

Of honored ends, and fetid, horrid fights!

Dug-in but dancing as the night drags on:

Doubtless and prancing ‘til their days are gone.