Writing Is A Way Of Seeing

In late October I taught a new writing class, In Praise of Decay, Compost, and Renewal in Chicago at the Greenspell Herbal Academy. One the exercises took us outside to an untended, thin strip of land behind a parking lot in the East Garfield Park neighborhood.

I thought we’d stay out there for only three minutes but participants began a wondrous search for plants in various stages of seeding and decay. We collected different kind of plants to bring back into the apothecary so that we could write poems and letters in praise to them. This process of writing was a way of seeing. Once we sat down with the plants and started to write—with pen and paper, not a screen—everyone reported noticing something about the plant which they hadn’t observed before. It was one of those moments when I remembered how writing brings our attention to a heightened level and lets us see details that would normally pass us by.

I love teaching writing as a sensory process rather than just something we’re doing with our heads and imaginations. Looking at the concrete, studying it, observing it, renders a kind of vivid, particularity to the imagination that we can’t just do in front of a screen. I’m looking forward to teaching more with Greenspell in the spring!

The burgundy red spreading across this leaf made me think of that line in The Odyssey, "the wine-dark sea.”

Always grateful when participants are eager and open to sharing their work with each other, even when they only just met. Such a lovely group of people!