Notes from the poetry workshop by Rebecca Balcárcel, author of Palabras in Each Fist, who was on my campus yesterday.
Overflow with voice:
Use unique language combinations.
Make words drip with personality.
Use words and phrases not in the pool of common language. (Lucy Greeley)
Try out a voice!
Describe a sunset in the voice of
a cowboy/girl
a child
a scientist
This was quite fun and three students volunteered to read, one from each voice. The sky was the color of spilled orange juice and there was a tetrahedral carbon atom doing something… (Student usage was superior to my reporting.)
I had a lot of fun with this exercise and I think that these could be done in many different ways. As a short writing exercise, she gave us three to five minutes, this worked very well.