I’ve facilitated this workshop several times with both adults and teens in a variety of settings including high schools and art galleries. Each time it is tailored to the particular audience, however a general description reads something like this:
Are you a list maker? Is your phone full of memos containing groceries to get, movies to watch, and chores to do? List making is a useful tool to assemble our thoughts, communicate efficiently and get us through our busy days. This creative writing workshop takes the familiar structure of the list and uses it as the framework for constructing meaningful and insightful prose-poetry. During this workshop we will harness the familiarity of the list and use it to create poems that push the boundaries of what it means to collect an inventory of objects, tasks and ideas. We will work with a series of collaborative and solo writing prompts that explore the potential of the list as a poetic form, culminating in an optional poetry reading and the creation of a personal collection of list poems.