Harnessing the Senses for Creative Inspiration
On Monday March 8th, 2021 we held our second Zoom mini-workshop, entitled Harnessing the Senses for Creative Inspiration, which focused on the sense of smell. The presenter was Voices member and veteran workshop presenter Elana Dorfman.
Like the first Zoom workshop it was over-subscribed, with the maximum 25 members including some from overseas.
The first exercise asked participants to list smells that were connected, for them, 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, the workshop encouraged participants to write either the first draft of a poem or story, or a “stream of consciousness” from which one could later be crafted.
Once again our Membership Coordinator, Yochanan Zachantov, provided an online evaluation form, and 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 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.
A few participants, closer up
Pages from the first exercise
Voices Israel Group of Poets in English 