Group Poetry

I took a very cool Poetry and Play workshop yesterday, with Lisken Van Pelt Dus, as part of March's Berkshire Women Writers Festival. The following was an exercise we did in the workshop. This poem consisted of six lines. For each line we would receive  word from the person sitting next to us. We then would give a word to our neighbor. The result was an individual poem, but we took it a step further. In a circle each woman would read a line, in order, from one to six. The result, was a group poem. As we had shared words, the poems created through this activity were cohesive. As each of the six lined contains a "gift" word, I consider this to belong to the group.

Blueberries
The streets are crowded
this morning. Angry faces
peer out from store-front
windows. Dogs scavenge for
bones in trash barrels lining
the sidewalks.

Sometimes the future looks
bleak from behind dirt-paned
glass. A little girl scatters
blueberries as she walks,
barefoot in the summer sun.

I can just make out her
calloused heels as she disappears
around the corner, never
to be seen again.