Beyond The Sentence

Today in class we thought about, wrote about, and talked about chance. Interestingly, not one of the class linked the topic to the reasons they are in prison. It felt like the beginning of a topic and I expect the class will bring it up again later. The writing prompt was a pair of dice and nearly everyone in the class wrote, 'Life is a game of chance' somewhere. It is always interesting to see how the students approach each writing task so differently. We had quite a few pieces in what we call the Commentary genre, so many that we had to further sub-classify into general commentary, spoken word - usually more polemic than didactic, and letters. The dice prompt produced all three, as well as short stories and poetry. One student wrote about the power of dice and we talked about giving power over to chance. We also spent time this morning reading and recognising the featured pieces in this blog so far. Each student whose piece is chosen to represent the class out

Today in class, we wrote about money. A friend visiting from overseas recently left behind a pile of old and worthless Kenya shilling notes. It is hard to throw away currency and so I thought these old notes might be an interesting creative writing prompt for class. The class, as usual, approached the topic in different ways. There were a number of spoken word pieces which explored what money means to them. There were some short stories which cleverly wove money, or lack of, into the fiction. DB wrote a poem (below) which looks directly at the lifespan of the grubby notes I brought into the classroom. In discussion time after the writing exercise, the students talked about their feelings about money. Some concluded it was ‘the best thing to have in the world’ while others disagreed and said that ‘love and happiness’ were the only things to value. Many in the class said that issues around money have influenced them greatly in their lives, and for some, a signifi

Whenever we mention poetry in class there is a groan, but teaching creative writing without poetry makes no sense to me. I decided to tackle this in a roundabout way today in class and try to generate poetry without the dissent. I asked the class to write down lists of unconnected words – nouns, verbs, adjectives, whatever. They passed their lists to their neighbour who was tasked with putting the words together either with or without conjunctions. The results were a wonderful mix of profound sense and some nonsense and we all laughed – no groans – about the poems that emerged from the chaos. Apart from the work, which impressed us all, everyone agreed it was yet another example of the creative power of the hive mind of the class. Here are a few examples: - Our new student S. wrote the following: - Happiness is nothing in this lonely room sad and worried friends disappoint but my pencil is my music Two students shared a list of words but came up with

In class today we talked about Dushka Zapata meditation on life and W.H. Auden’s famous poem about our inner lives and our perspectives. As always, the debate was interesting and lively with multiple perspectives on the topic. Everyone could relate to the assumption or expectation ‘you want what I want’ from both sides. Discussion focused around the pitfalls of not examining this stance in life, and the dangers of seeing one’s closest people as one; not separate. Auden’s poem meant that grief was discussed too and how separate we can feel when we are grieving. Two of the students talked about travelling from prison to court and back again in the prison service bus. They watched from behind the reinforced windows people walking or driving to work and wondered what their lives might be like, what issues they face. They wondered if those people noticed the bus, or saw them passing by. Did they think about us as we thought about them? Do our loved ones think about us as we

Today, the former President of Kenya, Daniel arap Moi died. He has been a prominent feature of Kenyan life for many decades and how we feel about him, his era and legacy are not simple but multi-layered. Today in class we discussed this. We talked about memories, experiences, and impressions of a man who has had a profound influence on Kenya since Independence to the present day. Some remembered ‘maziwa ya Nyayo’ or Moi’s Milk; the name for the twice a week delivery of free milk to all children in schools across Kenya. For children mostly too young to understand the complex nuances of political life, children appreciated the milk and took it as a sign that their President cared for them. This feeling largely endured despite the darker periods of President Moi’s rule. His benevolence to children is remembered above all else. Nearly everyone wrote quite factual pieces today; unusual in our increasingly creatively confident class. One student, QXT, a Chinese nationa

Obviously, for anyone spending time in prison, judgement has had a huge impact on their lives. However, quite apart from legal judgements, most people live looking through an almost invisible prism of moment to moment judgements. 'It's Not What You Think' was the theme of our writing exercise in class today. Students wrote in any form about a memory, or a story or poem which explored the theme. DB wrote a pair of tender poems which look at the two sides of judgement. One looked at the outer value judgements, and the voice of other poem is aware of the illusion judgement and moves beyond to compassion. JK wrote a wonderful story based in rural Kenya about an outbreak of typhoid. Joy, in quarantine, distrusts one medical workers seeming interest in her, and wonders what her motives are. When she drops her suspicion and fear, she discovers an opportunity she had never imagined. One of our new students, CNG, wrote about the dangers of instant physical attraction.