Blubber_Ocean Poetry

New Bedford Blubber Writers Workshop

Ocean Writing

Enlighten Your Creativity Senses

Midori Evans

Midori Evans, the founder of Midori Creativity, weaves together work as a community creativity-builder, photographer, writer, musician, and creativity coach. She is now in her third year curating and growing Meditations on Landscape, a festival of community, creativity and landscape art. She has run Artists Share!, a free monthly gathering for artistic connection and critique since 2019, is the originator and coordinator of Westport Writes!, a participatory writing experience for the town of Westport, and helped found the Westport Writers Group. This year welcomes her curation of The Landscape About Us, a published South Coast anthology by local authors and photographers that includes her own work. A lifelong creative explorer, Midori has written four articles in books about creativity coaching and writing, loves to travel and draws on the inspiration of the natural world in her work.

This workshop deals with writing poetry by using images from the ocean. A variety of photographs, charts, maps, and more will be handed out. For example, we will look at a map of the world's oceans, along with a tidal chart. As a class, we will have a conversation about how presenting the world from an ocean-oriented viewpoint rather than a land-oriented viewpoint shifts our perspective. Does this change our understanding of our world? We will design a writing idea together from this conversation. Items from the seaside will be set on a table. Participants will work in small groups and will use the five senses to describe items through verbal and written descriptions: Tidal Charts, Ocean Maps, World Map of One Ocean In conjunction, we will read two poems. Each participant will be given a printed copy of The World Below the Brine, by Walt Whitman, and Song of the Sea to the Shore by Robert Fanning. Then write a written response to the following prompts.

The World Below the Brine, by Walt Whitman
To write your response, students need to choose an ocean-dwelling creature or plant and create a world where that creature/plant lives, with the complexity of a human life. Describe this world through scene or character description.

Song of the Sea to the Shore, by Robert Fanning

To write a response to this poem, students will be asked the following question: So why have I felt I've reached you—as two reflected stars, surfaced, lie near—as if the sky's close element is one in me, where starfish cleave to stones—if you're so far?

Participants will leave this workshop with a better understanding of using imagery to create vivid mental pictures and sensory experiences through sight and words.

Workshop: 2.5 hours • 15 minute break

Cost: Free

Class Size: 10 People

Instructor: Midori Evans

What to bring: Items from the ocean, beach, notebook, writing implement, and an imagination.

Where: Co-Creative Center • 137 Union Street • New Bedford, MA 02740

When: New Class coming soon