Monday, October 8, 2012

Responding to Ecopoetic Themes & A Prompt


Hello Everyone, 

Since this week starts our exploration of Ecopoetry, I'd like the workshop to go in that direction as far as content & experimentation. On the introductory post for this week, I mentioned a challenge for you to write about ecological themes in your poetry, or content that is inspired by the natural world. Hopefully this will be fun and feasible, but if you find yourself off the beaten path of leaves and green thoughts or just feel you want some different inspiration, here's a prompt for you. It has a theme that considers environmental context (a creature's natural habitat for example), and might encourage some empathetic perspectives in thinking about the world around us and the organisms that inhabit it. Feel free to use it and make it your own!

Shapeshifting Dreams
In some of George R. R. Martin's books, his characters have the ability to “slip out of their own skins” and live and see momentarily through the eyes of another living being. Their experiences are similar to dreaming, therefore they never truly leave their own bodies. Pretend you are like these characters and that you now have the ability to do this. Your experience begins where you decide to “slip out of your skin” and see through the eyes of someone/something else. What is your experience? What emotions or sensations do you experience? How does it feel to live life through the eyes of a forest animal, or through the body of a deep sea creature? Who you temporarily become can be left as a mystery to the reader, or if it enhances the writing, feel free to let them know if your character is self-aware.
Happy writing as always, and I think this will be a great transition as we ourselves transition into Fall :]

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