Second Zoom Workshop, March 2021 - Harnessing the Senses for Creative Inspiration
On Monday March 8th we held our second Zoom mini-workshop, entitled Harnessing the Senses for Creative Inspiration. The presenter was a Voices Israel member and a veteran workshop presenter, Elana Dorfman. (Our first Zoom workshop, on the subject of Metrical Poetry, took place on December 29th, 2020).
Since not all the senses can be covered in two hours, the workshop focused on the sense of smell, perhaps the least regarded of the senses. The first exercise consisted of listing smells that were connected, for each participant, with a specific memory. This was followed by a writing exercise based on one of these memories and the smell that recalled it.
Unusually for our poetry society, Elana encouraged participants to write either the first draft of a poem or a story, or a "stream of consciousness" from which a poem or story could later be crafted.
Once again our Membership Coordinator, Yochanan Zachantov, provided an online evaluation form, and an unprecedented 22 attendees took advantage of it to give us feedback on their experience. Their feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with Elana's presentation and conduction of the workshop being especially enjoyed: we hope to profit from other workshops by her in the future!
Many thanks to Yochanan, to our Secretary, Linda Suchy, for her able administration of the registration process, and to our Past President, Susan Olsburgh, in her current role as Zoom administrator, for handling the Zoom invitation process.
Participants were invited, as usual, to submit the poems they wrote during the workshop - after editing and polishing if they wish - for inclusion in an e-chapbook which was distributed as a PDF file to all participants.
Below are a couple of screenshots to give the feel of the Zoom event.
