Last night I went to the poetry workshop hosted by Split This Rock. The workshop was hosted by El Jones, Halifax’s Poet Laureate. She started off by performing a few of her poems, including Africville:

After hearing El perform a few of her poems, we got down to business – exercises and then the writing of poems.

The first exercise consisted of pairing up – I paired up with my friend and fellow poet, Jessica – and asking the same three questions, over and over.

The first question was “who are you?” only when asked repeatedly you quickly get beyond the basics. My first response was: “Courtney”, followed quickly by: a poet, a traveler, a runner. From there it got deep. And one point I said, “A crappy daughter” which is when it started getting interesting. The second question was “who were you?” to which I answered, “a farmer’s daughter, a rebellious teenager” and then later “someone who had an emotional affair.” The final question was “who do you want to be?” and to this I answered, “a poet a stranger recognizes – just one stranger!.. a more patient wife, a benefactor to my alma mater…” The whole exercise only took about five minutes but in that time it revealed so much good material!

Shortly after that we wrote a poem. While I’m not ready to share what I wrote as I need to edit it first, but it was about my father and I was really pleased with what I wrote. I was impressed with what everyone wrote that night and I’m already looking forward to the next poetry workshop.

At the end of the night I snapped a picture with El, happy to have heard her work and shared a few hours with her.

El Jones and I