Peace (and Write Out),
Kevin
Author Archives: dogtrax
Write Out: Poems From Listening To A Landscape
As Write Out 2022 wraps up this weekend, I am revisiting a piece of music I composed and shared right before the start of the two week inquiry into place. The piece of music — A Quiet Walk In Four Paths: Listening To A Landscape — was inspired by a piece of writing by my NWP friend Bryan C. (read more).
Days later, I was listening again, and realized that each path or movement or section could inspiration for a small poem, so I set about over the course of a few days of Write Out to write the poems, and then gathered them together into another music video, where each poem is layered on each path/section of the composition.
Peace (walking the world),
Kevin
A Leaf, Transformed
Write Out At Spar: Making Notebooks, Seed Bombs and More
We held a live event for Write Out yesterday afternoon on the grounds of the Springfield Armory National Historic Site. Participants made science journals with stick bindings, formed Seed Bombs and launched them into a pollination area, and measured and gathered data on temperature differences for an inquiry into Urban Tree Canopies.
Peace (tossing it),
Kevin
Before The WMWP/SPAR WriteOut Event
Later today, the Western Massachusetts Writing Project and the Springfield Armory National Historic Site is hosting a live event for the national Write Out project. We’ll be at the Springfield Armory grounds, facilitating activities for educators on Climate Change, STEAM, Data Journals and more. It’s going to be a beautiful day and our two hour session will be outdoors, using the park property as our classroom.
One of the activities will be centered on understanding the impact of tree plantings as part of heat mitigation efforts and Urban Tree Canopies. We’ll be doing some measuring of temperatures, and creating data charts. I figured I should try it out myself, so yesterday, I did a little research around my own home. (see above).
There really is a huge difference between shade and sun areas, even during this Autumn time of year when things are cooling off.
Meanwhile, this morning’s Daily Create for DS106 was to design a launcher for Seed Bombs, which are made of special clay and hyperlocal seeds. We’re going to be making and launching Seed Bombs today at our event, but I went creative with another saxophone music seed for the design prompt.
Peace (and plantings),
Kevin
CLMOOC WriteOut Silent Sunday
Poetry: Write Out Themes From One-Word Prompts
I often write my morning poems inspired by one-word prompts from the Mastodon social networking space. Since Write Out kicked off, I’ve tried to keep “nature” as a theme in mind for the small poems.
Peace (outside, in),
Kevin
CLMOOC Postcard Project: Breaking Up A Poem
A few months ago (it was August, I realize as I write this), I was thinking that I had not mailed out postcards to my CLMOOC network friends for some time, and after further procrastinating, I gathered together a collection of Poetry Postcards that had been gathering dust (I knew at some point I’d be sending them out to some friends in the CLMOOC network).
I pondered what kind of message to send with the postcards, which all had poetry-themed writing on them, and decided I would write a poem, and break up the lines, so that each postcard would have a section of the larger poem. I let folks know they were getting only part of the larger poem.
The postcard to my friend Wendy, in Australia, took the longest to arrive (longer than usual, I think) but now that it has, I told them all that I would share the larger poem with them. The end of each stanza for one person is a handoff to the next, which was given to another person.
Above is the poem, in the form of a video.
Here is the poem, as text.
A stamp is but a sign
of a poem in flighta poem is but a kite
fluttering through the skythe sky is but an idea
we seed from imaginationimagination is but an inkling
in which a world becomes builta world is but a fraction
of what a writer is able seea writer is but a poet
wrangling rhyme into proseprose is but verse
flattened ink on postcardspostcards are but reminders
that someone is rememberingremembering is but a gift
we send to friends
CLMOOC is a loose network of educators and others who collaborate, make, share, and learn together. The Postcard Project is a way to get beyond “online” through mailed notes and cards, and a reminder that slow communication is just a powerful a digital networks.
Peace (and postcards),
Kevin
Write Out: Tree at School in Morning
Write Out: A Focus On A Scientist
Last night, in a live session, Karen Romano Young led teachers through her wonderful project — I Was A Kid — that shines an artistic spotlight on a diverse group of scientists. She creates these one-pagers (after extensive interviews and visits with the scientists in their fields of study) and I thought it would be interesting to try a modified version myself, to see if her work might inspire something I could do with my students.
Last night, she shared insightful interviews with scientists, chatting about how they use data journals and field notebooks for their work, and it was pretty fascinating to hear the scientists and to see their journals in all of the variety of forms.
For my activity that is inspired by the work of Karen Romano Young, I chose Brian May, the guitarist and founder of Queen, because of his work as a creative artists a much a his work as an astrophysicist, and I just find his life to be pretty fascinating for the way his curiosity sparks his path forward.
I did my research via Brian May’s website and Wikipedia, and used an art app called Sketchpad to create my piece. The image used a photograph of May, but filtered with Lunapic for effect.
More about Write Out and the use of STEAM notebooks: https://writeout.nwp.org/be-inspired/
Peace (and music),
Kevin