On a sunny Saturday this past August 5th, HoCoPoLitSo brought poetry to people of all ages at Howard County Library’s H3 Carnival— that’s “Hi-Tech, How-to, Hands-on”. From kindergartners through teens and couples married for 30 years alike, all wrote poems with the help and prompts provided by HoCoPoLitSo volunteers.

Naomi Ling, a Bauder Youth student member of the board and award-winning poet, guided the poetry writing using tools such as Metaphor Dice, instructions on writing a ghazal, and “blackout poetry“, in which a page of text is redacted by the poet and a poem discovered within just the words they chose to remain. When visitors finished their poems, volunteers typed them up on an antique manual Olivetti Lettera typewriter using worn, vintage-looking paper. Visitors of all ages marveled at the typewriter and wrote poems so they could have an artifact of their efforts.

Susan Thornton Hobby, HoCoPoLitSo board member and recording secretary had this to say:

A rising sixth-grader with long hair wrote three poems over the course of the day, and kept returning with his work to have it typed up. I saw him wandering around the other booths with his paper and pen, gazing up at the ceiling, tapping his pen to his mouth, clearly thinking. Every once in a while, he would stop at a different booth and use their flat surface to write his poems. One of his poems was about the woods, about building forts and feeling the breeze through the leaves.

Another trio of teenagers collaborated on a poem and wanted just their initials as authors, and laughed as a volunteer typed it up, speaking their phrases out loud as they were struck on the Olivetti. A man wrote a ghazal, which is a poem that repeats a word at the end of each line in a different way. He chose the word light and wrote the poem for his wife, his “guiding light”.

Poetry can sometimes intimidate would-be writers, but by bringing poetry to people where they are, at a free carnival where “hands-on” was the theme, HoCoPoLitSo helped visitors to shake off those fears and jump in, going home with a record of their own art. I know of at least two refrigerators now graced with original poetry by the children of the household.

Naomi Ling shared the thought that titled this post:

What kind of heart is cocooned? What kind of family is a lethargic drum? Questions like these swarmed the HoCoPoLitSo table, where eager kids rolled dice with seemingly untethered, random words on them to make metaphors. Many times I’d glance at the kids’ parents— who were just as flabbergasted by the metaphors— and answer: “I don’t know . . . That’s just poetry for you.”

You see, poetry doesn’t beget intentionality. It manifests at the roll of a die or the scratch of a head, and all we can do is let it flow from there. I personally had a great experience trying to decipher strange word concoctions (and laughing at the worst ones random chance laid out) with guests at our table. Not only did it prove that anyone could indeed craft a metaphor, but anyone could craft a writer out of themselves. They just have to roll with it.

You can find many more photos of the day’s outings, poetic and otherwise, at the library’s Flickr album found here— and check back at this very page for information on more literary events coming soon from HoCoPoLitSo.

let there be lit.