WNIJ held a youth poetry contest in April. The chosen poet got the opportunity to write a poem with “Poetically Yours” host Yvonne Boose. Claire Hua,13, sat down with Boose to reflect on the process.
Yvonne:
All right, Claire. You are 13?
Claire: Yep.
Yvonne: And what school do you go to?
Claire:
Sycamore Middle School.
Yvonne:
And how did you learn about the collaboration poetry contest that we put out in April?
Claire:
My teacher showed me after I showed her my poem one time.
Yvonne:
What type of teacher? Is it your English teacher? Or were you a part of some type of poetry class?
Claire:
She's my English and literature teacher. So, I get to see her a lot.
Yvonne:
Now, what did you think this process would be like?
Claire:
I think what we did today was very similar to what I imagined it to be.
Yvonne:
So, tell me, how did the process feel for you?
Claire
It was very different because usually I write alone. But I think it was fun and challenging to do it with someone else.
Yvonne:
Did you learn anything today?
Claire
I learned that the thesaurus is very useful.
Yvonne:
And when you say thesaurus, tell everyone about what we used that thesaurus for.
Claire:
Sometimes when you're writing, certain word choices can seem a little bit dry. But with the thesaurus, you have so many options to choose from.
Yvonne:
Now, the prompt for us was “New Beginnings.” And we held on to that. And then we use a couple of things. We used a book called "The Little Things" by Ingram Wendt, and what we did, we went in there and we looked at a couple of prompts. And I think the one we chose was “two ways of looking at things.” So, I know we went outside, and we were sitting there, and I said, "you know, you write a poem, I’ll write a poem, and maybe we can bring them together. Or maybe we can look at each other's and then we'll go from there." Tell me about the process for you writing your poem. Like, what was your inspiration?
Claire:
Well, to me, the seasons are very interesting, because as each new season starts, it sort of is like a new beginning. And since we are outside, I guess I was kind of inspired by that, too.
Yvonne:
You ended up talking about summer, and then you went over to fall. Tell me about some of the imagery that you use with your writing?
Claire:
Well, when autumn starts, that's when school starts. So that's why I added monotony because school can be quite monotonous.
Yvonne:
And then for me, I read your poem. And then I started writing. I started writing then I looked at a couple of things that you said, and I said, "you know what, let me interject in certain places. I'm not going to let you finish your poem and then I start a poem. Let me interject." So, then I started writing based on some of the things that you said. And when we put it together, we didn't say, "OK, you read your part, I read my part." We just decided, "OK, let's read and say this, based on what feels good to us." What do you think about the finished product?
Claire:
Well, I think it's certainly a collaborative project, reading each other's parts, makes sense, because we wrote it together. And the final poem was both of our work as a whole.
Yvonne:
Would this be something that you would ever do again?
Claire:
Yeah, it was really fun.
Yvonne:
All right. Thank you so much for taking the time to write with me. I am so excited to have shared this experience with you. And it was so nice to meet you, Claire.
Claire:
Thank you for having me.
Yvonne:
You have a good one.
