This week our guest prompter is the
poet and poetry series host Karen Lee Ramos, shown above with her son (also a
published poet), Daniel. Karen is the creator and host of POETRY at the BARN, a seasonal poetry reading series and writing
program located in the historic Barn Gallery of New Jersey’s beautiful Ringwood
State Park. Her poetry has appeared in various publications such as the Paterson Literary Review, Exit 13 Magazine,
The Stillwater Review and the Paulinskill Poetry Project anthology Voices From Here 2. She lives in northern New Jersey with
her husband and their two children.
POETRY at the BARN is sponsored by the nonprofit
Ringwood Manor Arts Association.
For more information please check out their website http://ringwoodmanorarts.org/
or contact Karen at klrpoetry@yahoo.com.
From Karen
As the host of a poetry program that
takes place in a local gallery, I am lucky to be surrounded by an ever-changing
array of beautiful art. I took advantage of that inspiring atmosphere to create
a fun, generative exercise by combining the essence of ekphrasis (from the
Greek description) with the simple
practice of word association.
According to Wikipedia, word association is
the spontaneous and unreflective production of words in response to a given
word. You say sky, I say blue...you get
the idea. We can borrow that concept and react to a succession of images instead
of given words. Your spontaneous
responses will become the springboard for composing a poem. I call this process image association. Here is how it works:
·
In a
museum or gallery move from one piece of art to the next, writing down the
first word or short phrase that comes to mind. Don’t censor yourself. The key is not overthinking. Unlike typical
ekphrastic poetry, you don’t want to focus on a single work of art. Just keep moving.
·
No
access to a gallery or museum? You
can use magazines, art books or websites ... any source that is image-centered.
As you turn pages or scroll through photos, jot down whatever immediately occurs
to you.
·
This
exercise can be done in many locations and with a variety of objects. Visit a big
box store, suburban mall or flea market and come up with quick associations for
each piece you notice. Try choosing
items by color, shape or material. Experiment!
Once
you have a list of words, look for connections, themes or repeating ideas. What
happens if you rearrange the order you wrote them in? Do new meanings
emerge? Perhaps some individual words
stand out, evoke an emotion or represent something you can pursue? If nothing
cohesive materializes at first, try writing a spontaneous line for each word,
or pick out a few strong words and brainstorm with them. Play and see what
happens.
Unlike traditional ekphrastic poetry, the
resulting poem may have no connection with the visual images that originally
provoked it. For instance, this poem evolved from a single word that had
nothing to do with sketches of quaint winter landscapes:
NUMB
the word
is undisturbed
by sharp consonants
with a soft hum
at the end
barely breathing
like grieving.
Karen Lee Ramos
Stillwater
Review 2018
Image association is a simple technique
that can be used again and again. It is an easy way to explore hidden corners
of your imagination. I hope it inspires you!
____________________________________________________________
A big
to Karen!
