Tag: poetry

Let gratitude empower your creativity (exercise)

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Write, create, innovate: exercises

Deepak

In almost any religion and culture we have heard of the importance of being grateful: to search for positive aspects in life instead of dwelling on what is wrong and how world is a bad place to live in. Our modern and fast paced environment has so much to offer: yet we  get trapped in to trivial and petty things instead of concentrating our attention on more important experiences. Those negative feelings that arise can literally block our creative energy, potential for problem solving and seizing the opportunities.

Gratitude can help us combat fear and anxiety. That feeling of appreciation opens the door for receiving even better things to flow into your life – like creativity. Experience of positive emotions and nurturing the state of well-being helps us engage in the  activities that encourage discovery and growth. Your observation improves; your relationship with the environment improves and you tackle problems from different angles.

Every problem comes with some sort of stress and crisis, but instead of wasting your precious energy on what you lack, you can learn from new situation and reinforce your ability to cultivate sense of inspiration.

Of course being content and grateful doesn’t mean neglecting the problem and looking at the world through pink glasses. It’s about finding self-confidence in every situation and feel liberated to explore the world as what it is.

Gratitude, like creativity, can be developed through practice.

Here are some ideas where to start:

  1. Read something inspirational at the start of your day;
  2. Imagine experiencing your good;
  3. Celebrate your small everyday victories;
  4. End your day with thinking of 3 things you are grateful for.

Poetry does have that restorative power and use it into your own advantage: as you might pour out those negative feelings in your poetry, try also to step back and write your poem about all good things in your life, that you love and care about. The more you write, the more things you will find you like about your life.

This beautiful sonnet by Alan Seeger offers a different perspective on our modern lives and stuffed cities, where we can see beauty and light in our ordinary surroundings.

Down the strait vistas where a city street
Fades in pale dust and vaporous distances,
Stained with far fumes the light grows less and less
And the sky reddens round the day’s retreat.
Now out of orient chambers, cool and sweet,
Like Nature’s pure lustration, Dusk comes down.
Now the lamps brighten and the quickening town
Rings with the trample of returning feet.
And Pleasure, risen from her own warm mould
Sunk all the drowsy and unloved daylight
In layers of odorous softness, Paphian girls
Cover with gauze, with satin, and with pearls,
Crown, and about her spangly vestments fold
The ermine of the empire of the Night.

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Work with opposites (creativity exercise)

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Write, create, innovate: exercises

frost

 

Many of us get trapped in ordinary, routine thinking which makes it hard to get into a mood of generating fresh and innovative ideas. We routinely get up every morning, brush our teeth, drink coffee, go to work – mostly every day at a same time, using the same route…And to tell you the truth, it can be a creativity killer. What we need is to mix up things a little bit, challenge our habits, language and way of thinking.

We are also aware that we do live in the world comprised of opposites. In Chinese philosophy and especially in Taoism, Universe is seen through the lens of yin and yang energy, male and female, strong and weak, dark and bright, cold and warm. Perceiving reality from the opposite side can give us clue in which direction we need to move forward in order to sort things out.

So for this exercise, as a warm up I propose you pick some ordinary words, something you frequently use in your language and list the opposite meaning of that word; first that comes to your mind.

For example: sky – bottom, ground

                          water – dry, yellow, sand

                           coffee – tea, sweet, cold

                           work – vacation, free time, relaxation

Do this for a limited time, maybe five to ten minutes. The idea of this warming exercises is to somehow ‘flush out’ that ordinary thinking, and give room for more ideas to come and encourage creative problem solving.

As a next step you can pick your real problem/project you are working on and apply similar technique. If you repeatedly struggle with something, “turn over” your thinking: instead of trying to develop your best solution, think of the worst thing could happen. How can your project fail? What is the worst scenario? Write every detail of that, using some key words related to your project and answering questions when, how, who, why, how much ext. To make it more fun, write a poem about it.

From that vantage point it might be more clearer what you could do in order for your project to succeed. By being able to imagine what we would like to avoid, it may opens a clear path in our mind of right things we need to do: who to contact, when to do something, how to prioritize our time.

Knowing what you don’t want to, is a first step to achieving what you do want.

I am not ambitious at all:
I am not a poet, I know
(Though I do love to see a mere scrawl
To order and symmetry grow).
My muse is uncertain and slow,
I am not expert with my tools,
I lack the poetic argot:
But I hope I have kept to the rules.
When your brain is undoubtedly small,
‘Tis hard, sir, to write in a row,
Some five or six rhymes to Nepaul,
And more than a dozen to Joe:
The metre is easier though,
Three rhymes are sufficient for ‘ghouls,’
My lines are deficient in go,
But I hope I have kept to the rules.Dear Sir, though my language is low,
Let me dip in Pierian pools:
My verses are only so so,
But I hope I have kept to the rules.

J. K. Stephen

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