This week in mid-week meditation, I offered two prompts based on the same poems. I randomly picked poems and then asked AI to remove punctuation and capitalization and randomize the words. The first prompt invited the writers to write using the words before them as a base.
For Example, here were my words:
films intentionally loving of the their feet while art culture borders hesitation possibilities fire paint artists loud or wall see and creative canvas kind-based canvas directed sprinting mumblings conscience limitations and all us deliberately windstorms blast motivation into with quality do art their struggle quiet questions without run does to and with move people or intentionally paint and has loving and and life-centered does toward can’t doubts with cameras name has create misrepresentations has blasts gates culture ideas advance and see a world centered civilization and and and the talk and struggle move escape and searching not and good or feet questionably questionably phones gates has ideas doubts the loving own toward move fire justice of people their advance loving art themselves has of not people computers its civilization paint forward clear canvas intentions blasts daily and pen paper question run run or walls feet as mumblings based with community run paint souls good rulers with and name quietly paint searching artists and loving has definitions and has gatekeepers and daily windstorms loving loving canvas with toward and and paint the
I gave us 15 minutes, this is what I wrote:
Untitled
To intentionally paint the world with love creates life.
There are no limitations
Civilization tries to rule
setting borders
and erecting walls.
It misrepresents truth
and sews doubts,
leaving society lost and lonely.
Daily windstorms tattering the art
that has so lovingly been created.
But the art of love
offers possibilities beyond the gates culture has created.
Love offers justice
it leans in with questions
and listens.
It paints quietly, slowly, subtly,
and brashly, without hesitation using bold strokes.
There are no gate keepers here
simply lovers loving:
a world searching for good,
souls seeking and searching
for new canvases on which to
paint beauty and possibility.
Then, I offered them the opportunity to read the actual poem. Mine was Art IV: Remembering Gwendolyn Brooks by Haki R. Madhubuti.
We then took an additional 10 minutes to write a poem based on the style they noticed in the poem. This is what I created:
Remembering Ezekiel Kallberg
children are fed what we feed them
they cannot forge on their own.
they are reliant on what we bring – good or bad.
children not only fill themselves
with the nutrients we provide;
But also the love, the wonder,
the hope, the resilience we fill them with
children absorb our ways
without us ever needing to
speak and perhaps even
before their ears can hear
outside the womb.
what shall we offer this
hungry one – ancient
dusty artifacts, a diet of anger
and war, a meal made
of mush,
or shall we choose to gather
them in our lap and blanket
them in love,
shall we surround them with
support and welcome them
into wonder.
shall we put before them a
feast which tantalizes them
and invites them to taste,
touch, sample
and decide for themselves
their favorites.
and perhaps even one day
teach them to cook.
Neither of these are perfect poems, but the process is like putting compost around your garden. The nutrients seep in and before you know fruit is produced.
I encourage you to give it a try and see what your process might seed.
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Wandering and Wondering 