What's Really Fun

is trying to come up with some exercises for my creative writing class. I'm not claiming that these will drive back today's clouds, but here's what I have in mind for part of this afternoon's class: Bring in a bag of kitchen utensils (most of which I had to clean first) and pass them out. Maybe say something about the Neruda-Wayman-McKay (to name only three) tradition of honouring the stories of chairs, forks, fridge doors, and so on, or maybe not. Ask students to see if they can read through the utensil and find a form for what they see. Also thinking of passing out, without comment, a poem from Ken Babstock's Airstream Land Yacht that upsets a few expectations usefully. I'll ask the students to comment, in writing, for Thursday. At some point, the "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" calendar my sister Fay sent me last Christmas--today's Place, Miami Beach, is home to "the largest collection of tropical art deco architecture in the world"--will make an appearance in class. And getting back to that first idea, I imagine the students and I all reading our utensil piece aloud at the same time, building in the sounds our gizmos make.