Indrani Perera

poet, publisher & mentor

Tag: paint chip poetry

  • World Poetry Day

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    I spent World Poetry Day 2023 with a group of fantastic kids ranging in age from three years old right up to fourteen. We had a fantastic morning of playing games, thinking about what poetry is and of course, writing some poems.

    Some of the kids had memorised poems which they recited for all the adults and kids gathered in the cosy lounge room next to the wood stove. Can you believe it's already getting cold enough to light a fire? The smallest member of the group sang us a song and there were also some poems read from the page. Just like a mini open mic really, with a  little bit of everything. Next time it would be wonderful to se them memorise and read their own poems aloud in from of an audience.

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    It's the first time I've run a poetry workshop and it was wonderful to be working with such an eager and enthusiastic group of people. They were willing to experiment and learn and we all had great fun. I can't wait to run another workshop! A big thanks to all the families who came along and made the morning so enjoyable and an especial thanks to Victoria Konash for the lovely photos.

     

     

  • Poetry Games

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    Over the last few years I've been slowly amassing a collection of board games. They're great for teaching flexibility, patience, turn taking, planning, strategy and basic maths. And they're also heaps of fun to play especially when you choose games with themes you're interested in as well as gorgeous design and production values.

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    When we visited some very good friends in Tassie they introduced us to the fabulous Poetry for Neanderthals game. In this game a speaker uses words of one syllable to describe a word written on a card. Their team tries to guess what that word is. If the speaker uses words of more than one syllable, they get hit over the head with an inflatable club. Super fun!

    Once we played this game, I went hunting for more poetry themed games. I couldn't believe that as a poet, I didn't already own any! Any excuse to buy and play more games really. And because it's poetry I can pretend that it's for 'work'. Win-win.

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    I managed to track down the brilliant Haikubes and Paint Chip Poetry, both from the wonderful USA publisher Chronicle Books. I fell in love with this publisher when I was in my twenties and reading the Griffin and Sabine Books by Nick Bantock. Both of these games are a kind of hybrid beast – not quite game and not quite a poetry prompt but fun to play with a group of people.

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    If you're interested in checking out games / tools that work as prompts for writing, check out this post. And if you come across any poetry games, please let me know.