A zoo sign from Bristol Zoo – and a wonderful artistic intervention.
Something from today, for yesterday…I ran a group today and we worked on the theme of animals – involving writing kennings and also some information signs for The Great Zoo – inspired by Cuban poet Nicholas Guillen.
The idea is that you can put anything into an enclosure in the zoo – and I think this is a really helpful way of getting people to consider and externalise things about oneself, or things that you might find interesting about the world…
So here’s what I wrote (and there were a few different species of this written about by different group members!):
Ideas
In this enclosure, you’ll find Ideas. They’re social creatures, living in great communal burrows in the mind. Sometimes, you’ll see an Idea break off
from the hive and start to grow, inflating to around five times the size of the others. This Idea will either go off to start a new colony, or the transition will be too much and it will pop.
Ideas generally eat smaller creatures
such as Hunches or Notions, though
they have been known
to cannibalise.
And a bonus Kennings poem – see if you can guess what the animal is! We actually did this as a secretive riddle/quiz during the session, which made it more gamified and fun 🙂
I Am A
Weed-wafter Seafloor-galloper Coral-neigher Tail-wrapper Fragile-souvenir Shallow-swimmer Armoured-slender Replica-maker Pregnant-swapper Eye-diverger Colour-changer…
What Am I?