Poetry Ain't so Persnickety after all

We are waist deep into our Senior and Veterans Writing Workshop series taking place at the Wakefield Senior Center and we are happy to say that fifteen participants showed up for that first introductory session and then returned even after being warned that poetry would be on the menu for the second session.

Colleen Getty facilitated the Portrait Poetry workshop and we hear from a reliable source that she is very fond of the poetic form. She actually thinks it's fun and at the very least cathartic. 

Participants were walked through a simple brainstorming process and then invited to put words down on paper. It was that simple. Getting what is in your head or heart down on paper where you can shape it in a tangible way using words. Sometimes you really have to hunt for the right word. Throw one out, pick another one up or pull something away so that a word that really works is allowed to shine and make a point.

That's poetry. It's the whiskey of the writing world, if you will. A distillation of all that might be bumping around in our heads.

It was a great experience for all, and those who don't normally have a taste for poetry walked away feeling less intimidated by it. Dare we say, they might try it again.

The best news we have to report is that eventually everybody in that room read a piece of what they wrote, and it was amazing. It was a safe space for all the words people wanted to share.

Thank you to Linda Malcolm, Karen Burke, and Dave Mangan for working to help us find a space and a time that allowed people to grow in their writing. Special thanks to all those participants who put any preconceived notions about writing aside and tried poetry on for size. 

Next week Kathy Shine-Cain will lead the group through a Memoir workshop, with the final workshop being led by Sally Chetwynd who will give us a taste of Fiction in the fourth session of the series.

We look forward to our Veterans and Service Members Writing Series in November thanks to a partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of Stoneham and Wakefield.