“The Healing Power of Poetry” Part 1: Reflect

Reflect on your response to the last question in our article of the week, “The Power of Poetry During a Pandemic.” You chose a moment to discuss. This moment could be happy, sad, exciting, boring, or otherwise. Today you are going to turn this moment into an original poem. You DO NOT need to share anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, but you do need to share something that you have feel or memories associated with. In the space provided, discuss this moment and its significance to you. You may choose a new moment, as well.

Part 2: Brainstorm

Now that you have chosen your “moment,” brainstorm what you might want to include or convey in your poem. Write down words, ideas, colors, images, anything that you associate with that period in time- it will help you out later!

Part 3: Create

Here is where you put your ideas into action! The hardest part is the first line- so if you are stuck, pretend that you are already in the middle of the action, or remember that you can come back and rework your first line a million times after you have created a working draft. Once you have a draft, go back through your piece and edit it for clarity. Consider what thoughts/ images/ ideas you want to share lines, and the message that you want your audience to take away from it. Do you want to repeat any lines for emphasis like Dr. King? Do you want to have a progression of ideas like Langston Hughes? Are you reflecting on the past, and your mixed emotions like Joseph Bruchac? Are you choosing an image to use as a metaphor for your experience, like Tupac Shakur? There is no right or wrong way to write a poem.

Part 4: Summation/ Explanation

Now that you have finished your poem, what were you trying to convey through it? What would you want your audience to know? What was your overall message or lesson for your reader?

Please Help

ASAP

My purpose in this paper is to help you experience for yourself the potential of poetry to heal by experiencing the power of poetry through your own voice.

In the United States many people are scared of poetry. They have had bad experiences with it in school. People often believe that poetry is difficult or inaccessible or not relevant to them.

Modern poetry is based on voice, and must be passed through our ears. This is where the sense is made. So, when you read this article and you see poetryFinding the words to articulate a traumatic experience can bring relief. A letter between friends who are fighting can heal a relational wound. People are frequently moved to write a poem in times of extremity. In mainstream culture there are subjects that are not talked about. They are taboo. For example, each of us is going to die, but we do not talk about dying. We are all in the dialogue of illness, death and dying, whether or not we are talking about it. Poetry gives us ways to talk about it.

the berlin blockade was an international crisis that arose from an attempt by the soviet union, in 1948–49, to force the western allied powers (the united states, the united kingdom, and france) to abandon their post-world war ii jurisdictions in west berlin. in march 1948 the allied powers decided to unite their different occupation zones of germany into a single economic unit. in protest, the soviet representative withdrew from the allied control council. coincident with the introduction of a new deutsche mark in west berlin (as throughout west germany), which the soviets regarded as a violation of agreements with the allies, the soviet occupation forces in eastern germany began a blockade of all rail, road, and water communications between berlin and the west. on june 24 the soviets announced that the four-power administration of berlin had ceased and that the allies no longer had any rights there.