Citational Poetry – Illness Experience Class Alternative
(Adapted from Jesús MartÃnez Saucedo. Many thanks to him for the inspiration and labor.)
Objective: I want you to think deeply about language, metaphor, and the illness experience and practice creative writing and form of expression through poetry. For this assignment, you will create an original poem informed by texts from Susan Sontag and Audre Lorde we read and discussed this week. You may use other readings from class as well, but it is not required. There are many ways to write poetry, below is just one suggestion. Feel free to engage the steps in any order, but read through them first.
Step 1 – Using the worksheets provided, generate a mosaic of language that focuses on the sensory, embodied experience of illness. You can either place the terms in the circle or use the list style worksheet on page 2.
Step 2 – Identify your favorite or most memorable quotes from both of the texts from this week.
Step 3 – Complete page one of the worksheet, addressing the prompts in each of the four corners.
Step 4 – Craft a poem about illness using the words you placed on the circle worksheet (page one). The poem can be about your own experience with an illness or focus on what you learned about the illness experience from Sontag and Lorde. Be sure to give your poem a creative title.