Thinking Portrait Poems
I’ve been exploring possibilities for a session on Portrait poems. In DIKSHA and Sanlaap we facilitated a Portrait Poem Session which didn’t fly too well with participants. The discussion was good and enjoyable, but the the entire session didn’t insitigate writing as well as we hoped.
I’ve been looking around in books and web resources for inspring poems that we could model after. I found a poem written by a young person on a random website I came across, which is something that we could possibly be used as a model poem. (Note, the context of the poem is very “american,” but I’m interested in the thematic structure as a model.)
Grandpa
The man with the black pants
Is the one with a voice like brass
He is baseball and lottery tickets
Board games and bricks
He says do your homework
But after a quick game of catch
He reads the paper and works today
He is stocks and pens
A closed door and a phone
He says work hard
Get a good job
Who used to play and sing
Who screams and shouts
Whose eyes are big and wide
Who remembers the time
He is laughter and salt water taffy
An old brown car and a baseball mitt
Who asks me,
Who’s up for a game of catch?
by Andrew Hill grade 9
However, at the same time, I’m wondering if there are poems in the vernacular (Bangla or Hindi) that we could find use as a example poems and then try to build a session around it. Of course, its always been challenging in the past to locate such poems. But lets keep searching.
Folks faciliating workshops on the ground, do you guys have thoughts or ideas?
