[ashleyskartvedt]

Hi all, Please respond to this thread by sharing a favorite model poem you’ve used in your Pongo-inspired workshops or plan to use in a future workshop. Bonus: if you have 1-2 discussions questions that correspond with your poems, please share those as well. Looking forward to reading what you all come up with!

[Info]

Hi All,

So, one of my favourite poems is Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. Perhaps because it starts, ‘You do not have to be good’.  Poem and prompts below:

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

 

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Prompt:

Are there phrases or lines in the poem that jump out at you?  What are they?
What have you learned about ‘being good’?

 

[ashleyskartvedt]

Thanks for sharing this poem Debbie! It’s a great one. I too, love the opening line. It’s an important one for all of us to hear, especially the youth that Pongo works with.

Ashley

[Info]

Hello,

I work with incarcerated youth, and many of them are trying to stay strong and not lose themselves. My favorite poem is “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley. Even though it’s an old poem, I think the message is relevant to the population I work with. The author wrote it while he was sick and going through hard times, but he never gave up. The poem speaks about resilience and inner strength, even when life feels hopeless or you feel trapped, our spirit can still be free.

“Invictus”

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Prompt: Can you think of a time when life felt hard, but you still kept going or refused to give up? What helped you stay strong?

[Info]

Hi, sending cozy fall wishes to you all!

My model poem is
Freedom
by D. Hill (an incarcerated person in California)
Surrounded by armed men and barbed wire fences
Swallowed by thick solid gray concrete
Left with nothing but my own mind
That I use day and night
To dream about a light that
Upon sight slowly cures every ache.
From: Prison Journalism Project, April 2023.

● I love how this poet uses powerful, almost pulsing description and rhyming (light and
sight) and expresses their power of imagination to process and seek comfort in a carceral
environment. This poet also shows us how we can use art to weigh the hard things and
hope in both hands. The Prison Journalism Project publishes poetry by incarcerated poets
from around the United States, giving them a platform to share their story.

o Poet Hill, shares about finding power in dreaming and imagining his strength
and potential, do any dreams come to mind for you?
o If you were to describe what being in this facility is like to someone who has
never been in, how would you express the way it feels, sounds?
▪ When you imagine your future, what do you visualize, can you describe
the person you want to be?

Thanks for reading and sharing!

-Alyssa

[Info]

Hi all,

I appreciate your grace as I ease my way back into things and recognize my late posting. Attaching a model poem here that I am planning to use when we launch our programming! Based on Freedom x Langston Hughes

Freedom will not come

Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want my freedom
Just as you

Prompt/Discussion Questions:
What does it mean to be free?
What activities or practices make you feel free? Joyful?
How does this poem relate to the idea that Freedom delayed is Freedom denied?

 

Kendall

 

 

[Info]

 

This poem is untitled, and it’s by Rupi Kaur who is one of my favorite poets.

Model Poem Questions:

1.        What line or image stood out to you?

2.        Would you like to doodle or draw a picture to go with your poem like Kaur did in hers?

 

Sentence Stems:

1.        It was when I stopped… (when I started)

2.        I found… (I lost)

 

Participation:

I would invite participants to share by asking them if there was a line or image they wanted to share with the group.

I would also ask if they wanted me or someone else in the group to read their poem out loud if they were too shy to do it themselves. I have found that sometimes people want to share but get nervous reading poems themselves

[Author]

Posts