wordplay

How to Create Haiga (With Paint Blots)

| Danna Smith

Often called Zen Art, Haiga (hi-gah) combines Haiku and drawings on the same page. The poetry and the images work together to strengthen one another. Japanese poets often created Haiga in ink with simple brush strokes. In my book, How Do You Haiku? A Step-by-Step Guide with Templates, we explore Haiga through paint blots. A swipe of paint on paper feels much like the brush stroke the masters used. This project is fun for the whole family or classroom! Enjoy!

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How to Write a Found Poem: Thrift Shop Flowers

| Danna Smith

Found poetry is the literary version of a collage. The poems are made up of words taken from a printed document such as a newspaper article, a speech, a menu, junk mail, or even another poem (or in this case, a book on flowers from a thrift shop). The poet selects words from the document and rearranges them to create a poem.

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Paint Chip Poetry: Colorful Wordplay

| Danna Smith

For the last decade I’ve attended an annual writer’s retreat by the ocean in Northern California where I gather with friends for inspiration, laughs, and writing. Each year, a friend, author, and artist I admire hosts a Paint Chip Poetry session. We dig into a pile of paint chips (you know those paper strips of paint colors from the hardware store) and write a poem in ten minutes based on a given prompt and the names of the chosen colors (unseen until timer starts).

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