The Poet's Eye
Yel Hannon Brayton
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Journal Writing
Poetry is a personal journey. René Descartes, the seventeenth century philosopher, said, "I think, therefore I am." The poet could just as well say, "I think, therefore I write." Or moreover, "I am, therefore I write." As Jeff Mock suggests in his book,
You Can Write Poetry
, "That's the key: making art of what you do . . . Poetry is the way I've chosen, or perhaps poetry chose me." (p. 12) Following Mock's advice, students will keep journals to record: "ideas, sights, lines of poems, possible titles, strange words, words of advice, words of wisdom," along with anything else that captures their attention and most especially, their expressions of their feelings. Journals will be used throughout the unit to include warmup writing exercises as well as "prewriting" (brainstorming-style writing to be done before working on a poetic form).
