Topeka Immersion-Somatic-Becoming Poetry Project #6

Topeka Immersion-Somatic-Becoming Poetry Project #6
for Leslie Von Holten

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This project is in two parts. You will need a good sketchbook, a pencil (charcoal preferred), and a pen.

Go to a coffeehouse, a park, a historical location, or somewhere people are.

For the first part, you are an artist. You specialize in drawing. If you cannot draw, don't worry. You can sketch. Sketch or draw the best you can.

You are working on a collage of things. You are an artist working in your own style.

Take fifteen minutes to relax and mediate, then relax until you notice something or someone that interests you. Do your best to draw her or him, or the thing of interest. Sketch if you want to. Draw or sketch wherever you want on the page. Sketch or draw how much feels right to you. Leave lines unfinished. Leave lines going into other parts of the page.

Work in pencil or charcoal. Avoid self-editing. Simply continue or combine.

Continue relaxing, sketching and drawing whatever attracts your interest.

You are an artist in a public place, sketching your impressions of that place, everything in it, in the way you sketch or draw, in the way you are interested in the things there in that moment.

When you finish, be sure to date and sign the back. Sign the front if you want.

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For the second part, you start another page while looking at your collage.

You are a poet now. Write whatever impressions you feel from the art.

Use concrete nouns, words to describe what is happening on the page.

If you feel a narrative, write a narrative. If you feel lyrical, write a lyrical poem.

Make connections with the connections on the page. Is there someone looking at something? Write about it.

Work in pen. Avoid self-editing. Simply continue or combine.

Feel free to not get it right. You are a poet. You can write whatever you want and not have it right.

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Sketch a collage and write a poem each day of a month. Go to the same place every day.

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At the end of the month, contact the place you went to and ask about doing an art show. If a coffeehouse, ask the manager about a show.  If you chose a park, tack up your work on trees.

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The goal of this project is to 1) further finding the artist-poet in each of us and 2) to find connections with place and community. Each of us can connect with community in many ways. This is one way to do it.