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12 March 2022

Postcards & Self-Portraits

Mayflower Junior Writers – 12

The Junior Writers session began with sharing what we’d been up to in the past week.

We then did a practice run for the Community Showcase at ArtfulScribe’s Spoken Word Weekender. The group is reading their response to Tagore’s Paper Boats, written in last month’s translation workshop.

Next, we were tasked with writing 5 things which are important to us. Answers included: my notebook, my cat, my bed, strawberries, TV, fajitas, flowers, my grandma, art, my Nintendo switch, maths (“the key to knowledge”), mangos, and money (on Roblox).

We each had to choose one of these important things to draw a picture of on a blank postcard, and then write to ourselves from the perspective of that object / thing. For example, we would be receiving a postcard from fajitas. See the results below!

We finished off with a final rehearsal for the Community Showcase.

Mayflower Young Writers – 8

The Young Writers session began with reading and discussing two self-portrait poems: self-portrait with dirty hair by Safia Elhillo, and Self-portrait as a drop of water by Emma Danes (read below).

Some of us were confused by the structure of self-portrait with dirty hair: the lines run into one another without typical line breaks, making it harder to read. However, we also could see how this gave us the impression the narrator is restlessly annoyed.

After discussing the poems, we listed three adjectives we would use to describe ourselves and thought about an object those adjectives also leant themselves to.

We then wrote a self-portrait poem as that object.

Finally, we leafed through our notebooks for a piece of writing to share at the Community Showcase at ArtfulScribe’s Spoken Word Weekender, and went around reading out to the group.

Postcards (1/2)

Postcards (2/2)

Self-portrait as a drop of water

self-portrait with dirty hair

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