FLY Poetry Workshop: Other Voices [12 students]

10:00: Introductions
- Overview of workshop
10:00-10:05: Feelings towards poetry [pairs]
- Introduce yourself to person next to you
- How do you feel about poetry?
- Do you read it? Do you write it?
- Why, or why not?
10:05-10:15: Feedback [class discussion]
- Write up on board/reiterate verbally
10:15-10:20: Other Voices
- Poetry often considered a way of self-expression – love poetry, romantic poetry – a
way of you talking about your inner feelings
- What I love about poetry is that you can also use it to step outside of yourself – you
can speak in someone else’s voice, just for a while
- Different to fiction, where you need to flesh out this entire world – here, you can give
the reader just a glimpse
- Focus on feeling
- Not without its challenges
10:20-10:25: What issues might we encounter when trying to speak in someone else’s
voice? [groups -> class discussion]
- Cultural appropriation – do we have a right to give voice to someone else’s
experience?
- Stereotypes – falling into narrow or reductive ways of portraying someone else’s life
experiences
- Implausible/uncomfortable – we might feel that we don’t have a “right” to “speak” for
someone else
10:25-10:30: How do we get around these issues? [class discussion]
- Cultural appropriation – no “one” experience – this is a person/character you’re
writing, not all people
- Stereotypes – be aware of them, do research, understand what you’re doing and why
you’re doing it
- Implausible/uncomfortable – think about why this voice, and make this voice specific
– there are things you can’t know, but you can imagine based on your own
experiences
10:30-10:40: Other Voices [class discussion]
- Give me a character – could be fictional, someone from history, a celebrity, a
politician, an animal [x3]
 - Pick one – brainstorm how we might approach writing in this voice
- What characterises this voice?
- What motivates this character?
- What experience or situation does this voice let us explore?
- What form does this voice need to speak in?
10:40-10:45: Writing [pairs]
- Pick any one of these elements as a starting point – try coming up with the first couple
of lines of a poem in this character’s voice
10:45-11:00: Mini workshop [class discussion]
- Read your poem starts out
- What works for you/what doesn’t work?
- How could these be improved/developed?