By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Newbie or Wannabe poets in the Westwood area were in luck this past month as the Islington Branch of the Westwood Public Library (WPL) hosted a workshop for all to come and enjoy. This workshop was broken up into two different sessions for the newbie poets to join.
Each session was led by Westwood Poet Laureate, Lynne Viti, who welcomed those who have either never written poetry before but have always wanted to try, as well as those who may have dabbled in poetry at some point in time. The whole idea was to work on their poetry both individually and together in order to receive positive feedback and respectful criticism.
For the first session, Viti had participants bring in two family photos either in paper, album or digital form, excluding their cellphones. She additionally had them bring some sort of paper, whether that be a notebook, an electronic device, a composition book, etc. and a couple of pens/sharpened pencils.
With their two family photos, individuals were going to write one or two poems about each. The assigned prompt had a lot of flexibility to it as long as you tried your best and put your finest work forward. If they did not have enough time during the first session, everyone was able to finish over the next couple of weeks and bring it to the second session.
During this second session, all participants read their poems allowed once and had Viti read it aloud a second time. The reason in which Viti likes to read their poems out loud herself is because she believes that this is a helpful technique to see how other people may put emphasis on certain lines of the poem than when the writer does.
While each poem was being read, Viti had everyone think about a positive aspect of the poem they liked and helpful feedback that could be useful for the author to potentially change or fix. When presenting any feedback, it was said that it is always important to start with the positive and work your way into any criticism.
The poems that each attendee wrote were absolutely fantastic, with little criticism given. Once all the feedback had been given, the group collectively agreed that it was all extremely helpful since they each wanted to make sure to create the best version of the poem that they could.
Poetry is an excellent way to express emotions, actions and feelings into meaningful words of power, sympathy, excitement, and so much more. For information on upcoming events like these happening at the WPL, please visit their website at www.westwoodlibrary.org.
