The biggest challenge is organizing an event to reach an interested audience. I organized a group several weeks ago and no one showed. One of our student leaders suggested that I was not advertising in the right places. My intention was to get the support of the student leadership to advertise but it has been one traumatic event after the other here on campus and in Jamaica (there was a sudden death three weeks ago and then a storm two weeks ago). In one sense, the time is right for organizing a poetry circle but grounding myself to get things together and to advertise has not been easy.
In the same vein, I did a group poem with residents of a student hall recently. It was an off the cuff exercise at the end of a debriefing circle (I held space for students after the hurricane here in Jamaica). I just asked the group to shout out words to finish the sentence, ‘Perhaps, after all we’ve endured, there is still room for…). The poem they wrote was beautiful and when read they felt so proud of themselves, one student said, “I can’t believe I wrote a poem!” I share this to say that this is evidence of the power of the technique but organizing myself remains a challenge. When I use the technique, I rarely have the surveys ready to get feedback etc. So, any tips appreciated. Maybe, for example, I should walk with a packet of surveys and writer’s releases since I will use Pongo spontaneously. I also asked the residents if they wanted a separate poetry circle and this might be the beginning of an ongoing group.
