inneresting, part 2

Still thinking about the book report.

Kids have trouble with the book report because there is no context.

If there is comparison, or a foundation, to provide context, it becomes more possible. Given that curiosity exists, which in this case, it does.

Also – I’m thinking of poets who publish a series of interviews with other poets. That’s cool and fun and generates a bunch of material and is very rewardingly communal. It seems pretty easy to do if you have a set of fundamental “essential” questions.

So if I generated my essential questions about ecopoetics (almost wrote ecopietics, which would be something completely different), I would have a context, a generative context. I would not have to start with “It’s interesting, but…”

Some idiosyncratic generative questions:

What does the shape of the poem remind me of?
How does the language fit into a human ecosystem?
How does the poem participate in non-human nature?
How does the poem interact with human sense perception?
How do I imagine the poet came up with that language? (rules)
What is the intention of the poem?
Is there imagination at work in the poem?
Does it invite me in or does it resist me? Why? How?
How does the poem treat boundaries? does it try to blend? or does it fight? (evolution)
Does the work/play of the poem match any other work/play that I’m familiar with? (evolution, shamanism, politics, spiritual path, bonds of intimacy, software engineering)