single word concrete poems

All you need is a single word, a piece of paper (or mud, sand, salt etc.) and something to write with. Your job is to make the word look more interesting, by changing the shape or size of the letters or playing with space and colour.


a           lone

Joe's Galaxy

Dramatic words work well, you could try:

lightening
thunder
slime
bang
explosion
crash
burn
dripping

Joe's thin & fat

or descriptive words

short & tall
little & big
twice
upside down
under & over
uphill &  downhill
squeezed
squashed
leaning....

Joe's uphill downhill

You can find other examples in books and on the internet, such as Alec Finlay's Loop poem, and Salt Publishing's splendidly obvious Salt, with letters pressed into the white stuff. This is also chosen by us for another reason (see below).

Alec Finlay, Loop, vinyl on wall, 2006

Salt Publishing logo

A book for inspiration is A Poke in the I, a recent collection of concrete poems, selected by Paul Janeczko and niftily illustrated by Chris Raschka. If you'd like to dig deeper, look at Concrete Poetry by Mary Ellen Solt, her joyous FLOWERS IN CONCRETE is at http://www.ubu.com/historical/solt/solt_flowers.html

stencil faces

Today we've been designing faces using stencils.

1. Gather together your materials: stencils of various sizes, paper and pens
2. Design a face using stencil letters to make the shapes of eyes, ears, nose, hair, mouth, freckles, spots, glasses... whatever you want on your picture

Joe's Vampire face

Ideas
1. You could try just using the letters in your own name, to make a self portrait
2. Try something grisly, a scary vampire face or a skeleton for Halloween...
3. Try making an animal face
4. Experiment with different colours of paper, or pens.

There are lots more examples of stencil faces at our flickr portfolio site 

Lois's stencil face

grisly plaster writing

Many boys relish showing of their scars, cuts and bruises, so why not take advantage of their grim nature and encourage them to write about it...

trapped under door
bleed a lot in bath
went black and fell off

1. Picture a time you hurt yourself, fell over, tripped over your shoe laces, banged your toe, fell out of a tree, off a skyscraper... how did you feel? What did your skin look like? What did it look like a week later? Talk through your ideas with a grown up, and then...
2.  If there are any spellings that you are unsure about, practice them on a separate piece of paper
3.  Write down a few words or lines on a fabric plaster
4.  Attach your plaster to the area of your body that was hurt
5.  Wear with pride.

a walk

Yesterday I introduced Joe to the art of Richard Long with our own homage to his textworks. We shocked ourselves by actually getting out of the house early, and took the opportunity to do something creative on the walk to school. Long makes artworks out of words, that suggest the landscape he walks through rather than showing it.

1. Make up the rules together. You need to create a plan for regular stops on your walk to write what you notice. These could be on a count (maybe 50?) or throwing a stick and seeing where it lands, or whenever you hear a birdcall, or, or , or...

2. When you stop, look around and write the first thing that catches your eye, or ear. Or even nose. On this occasion I wrote the words down for Joe, this sped us up, got us to school on time, and allowed me to check my spelling when I got home! But it would be great to do the writing on the spot if you have time.  
3. At home, copy the list and make changes if you like.

It was an intriguing exercise, encouraging him to really look and describe the world around him. It also helped motivate the walk itself. I will definitely try it again, but next time not on the way to school, so he has time to write the words down himself directly. It could be adapted to any walk; inside a supermarket, to the local shop/postbox, in the town or countryside.