The following essay was inspired by Hyejung Kook's zuihitsu 随筆 sentence. The original exercise was about 10 minutes, and in the RHINO Poetry Forum, all poets shared their lines from 5-second paragraphs of the 10-minute exercise. You may try this exercise even though I am a trained professional, you can still try this at home. "A Cat Sits On a Mat"
This is the first sentence ever I wrote in English. Probably, I wrote it more than one hundred times. My first English teacher was introduced by my sister’s kindergarten friend from East Asia (I do not remember where his family came from) and his mother taught us English twice a week in our cookie-cutter apartment in Japan. A cat sits on a mat. It was British English--I noticed it later when I started my exchange student life in Indiana--so my sister and I learned British English pronunciation, but shortly after, our new English teacher came from Australia. My pronunciation is somewhere between Japanese—British—Australian—American Mid-west, but I realized my spelling of the color, “grey”, is in British English. In her class, we first practiced the pronunciation of ABC as /ə/ /b/ /k/. We drew, “a cat sits on a mat” in our notebooks. Usually my sister took longer than I did. Soon, I started decorating the cat and mat. My first cat had a bow tie with a new cat wearing a silk hat. There was a flower vase on the mat. It is clearly no longer, “a cat sits on a mat”. I drew food—chopsticks, bowls, and tea cups. I added furniture around the cat (and more cats). Eventually I designed a whole house for the original cat that sat on the first mat. Some colorful cats lied on the floor. A blue cat sits on a mat. Adding the word "blue" was the most exciting moment I still remember. My brain recognized connecting words with meanings. Despite not memorizing how to spell, I could say many colors and objects in English before she went back to her own country. A cat sits on a mat. In our first class, my nephew and nieces were repeating the same sentence with their crooked handwriting, but my nephew was quiet. He did not want to say the sentence nor draw it. "I don't understand your gibberish", he despaired, crying. His eyes wide open and raw like a small animal gnawing. He left our dining table and went to the corner, holding his paper. A cat sits on a mat. A cat sits on a chair. A cat sits on a table. "Is it bad manners?" my nieces laughed in Japanese, so I laughed too. After the class, they kept drawing and adding things around the original cat like I did nearly thirty years ago. My nephew came back and slammed his paper on the table, showing a gigantic purple cat sitting on the tiniest green mat. Then, they started chasing each other. This is a part of some graphic poetry workshops I recently held. I would like to share three examples of how we can approach and start creating a graphic poem. Once you start creating one, you will flow and feel sparks in your brain! RHINO Poetry recruited about ten poets to highlight poems by our poets of color: poems of love, courage, anger, jubilation, and resistance with graphics until September 9, 2020. You may see the project through our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The following graphic poems are from the project. The assignments are to read and understand RHINO Poetry's published poems, then add graphics. There are several ways to approach this. Today’s quick exercise is to create a first sketch graphic version of your poem. (We will show it later during our workshop.) Example 1 Process: #1) Decide which words become images or remain words. Maya Marshall's original poem is attached. The circled parts were translated graphically. #2) Create collage. Example 2 Process: #1) All words are on the paper. #2) Images are also added. Poem: "Dap" by Cheswayo Mphanza. Example 3 Process: #1) Select the most vivid/heated phrase(s). #2) Add images. Poem: "Bull's Eye" by Luisa Igloria, Poet Laureate of VA. Graphics by Chloe Martinez & her daughter, Amina. You may enjoy reading my past articles about "How Graphic Poetry Helps Us Progress the Story Telling Technique and the Creative Process of Its Own Editing".
How do I choose materials and color schemes? One simple way to improve observing habits after graphic poetry exercise Is it difficult to have divergent thinking? Can a graphic poem have a line break? Why didn’t I write down whole poem in a graphic poem? My editing technique has developed after a collection of graphic poems Many, many friends ask me this question, so here are the magazines that mine were in. I also linked each to my published work. You may feel the magazine's vibe (what they are looking for).
POETRY Tupelo Quarterly North American Review Action, Spectacle Moria Glass A Journal of Poetry 1 Glass A Journal of Poetry 2 Jet Fuel Review Drunk In A Midnight Choir The Indianapolis Review Glass Lyre Press - "Cochlea" (Chapbook of Art & Poem) The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Graphic Literature - Essay Contributor with my graphic poems. Exploring Japanese literature translations and applying their teachings to your own poetry writing8/28/2020
For the next two months, RHINO Poetry will focus on translation themes. Naoko Fujimoto (August) and Noh Anothai (September) will be navigators of the forums. They are open to the public, no translation skills required. With Naoko Fujimoto, we are going to learn three genres of Japanese literature (Zuihitsu, Waka/Haiku, & Renga). After reading translation pieces such as those by Donald Keene, we will have a couple of writing exercises adapting Japanese writing methods. NOTE: This is a part of RHINO Virtual Poetry Forum Outline. Style: Zuihitsu (随筆) Writer/Poet: Sei Shōnagon (清少納言) Book: The Pillow Book (枕草子) Section: The first four paragraphs of “Hateful Things” (にくきもの) Translator: Ivan Morris One is in a hurry to leave, but one's visitor keeps chattering away. If it is someone of no importance, one can get rid of him by saying, "You must tell me all about it next time"; but, should it be the sort of visitor whose presence commands one's best behaviour, the situation is hateful indeed. One finds that a hair has got caught in the stone on which one is rubbing one’s inkstick, or again that gravel is lodged in the inkstick, making a nasty, grating sound. Someone has suddenly fallen ill and one summons the exorcist. Since he is not at home, one has to send messengers to look for him. After one has had a long fretful wait, the exorcist finally arrives, and with a sigh of relief one asks him to start his incantations. But perhaps he has been exorcizing too many evil spirits recently; for hardly has he installed himself and begun praying when his voice becomes drowsy. Oh, how hateful! A man who has nothing in particular to recommend him discusses all sorts of subjects at random as though he knew everything. Writing Exercise 1: Write a first draft of ten paragraphs of zuihitsu Theme: COVID-19 Things I am going to time each paragraph. When I say, “Move to the next paragraph”, you are going to start writing a new paragraph with a new idea within the theme. With the timed writing windows, you will have random lengths of paragraphs. You may also enjoy reading my past articles about "How Graphic Poetry Helps Us Progress the Story Telling Technique and the Creative Process of Its Own Editing".
How do I choose materials and color schemes? One simple way to improve observing habits after graphic poetry exercise Is it difficult to have divergent thinking? Can a graphic poem have a line break? Why didn’t I write down whole poem in a graphic poem? My editing technique has developed after a collection of graphic poems |
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