Rooted in your Spirit of Place - week two of a series of four workshops

  The 4-week cut-up poetry workshops will focus on the theme of being "rooted." We all are rooted in our own birth story, we are rooted to the genius loci or spirit of place of where we were born or where we live; we are rooted to our family and our ancestors, and finally we are rooted to a calling, or vocation that we are meant to do here on earth.

The cut-up technique is where you randomly cut out words or full sentences from magazines or old books to recreate a poem. We will be using this technique to unlock aspects of what it means to be "rooted."

This will be a four-week workshop. The first week we will explore the element of being rooted to our birth story; the second week, we will look at what it means to be rooted to your place of origin or place you live at; the third week will focus on what it means to be rooted to your ancestors or family; and finally we create a cut-up poem of the idea of being rooted in your vocation.

The intention of these four workshops is to weave together a collective story of ourselves. My hope is that each of the poems will create a short story of each of our roots.

Materials needed:

Old magazines or books

Scissors

Glue

A paper bag or a container for the cut-outs

8x11 cardboard paper or any other paper

Once you finish, you share it with the group. You'd be amazed at what comes up!