an aunt & some nieces — a trip to ott's exotic plants this month.

a must-visit place in our area is ott's exotic plants in schwenksville; i visited there twice in early may with two of my nieces and then again with one of the same nieces and another one.

the initial trip's photos are by me and lillee grace. i've been teaching my young nieces and encouraging them with photography in the past few years. i figured learning the skill and trusting themselves all the sooner in this world is probably a useful approach. and why the hell not. we need strong, capable, creative adults a few decades from now, anyway.

a haiku, for some good fun.

*

a house of textures

we glide fingertips along

foliage, soft blooms

a second trip in mid-may: these photos are by me, lillee grace, and lilly jay.

traveling poetry classes in june 2018 @ the schuylkill in mont clare & also in coventry with pottstown cars & coffee.

june 2018 traveling poetry class info is now ready.

next classes–

when: sunday, june 9 @ 1 p.m. & sunday, june 24 @ 10 a.m. (a new time out of our norm due to pottstown cars & coffee only running from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.)

where:  

for june 10,  lock 60 along the schuylkill river is located at 400 tow path road, mont clare, pa 19453, and this road is just across from produce junction outside of phoenixville off of bridge street–follow the driveway all the way back until there is no where else to go 

for june 24, the property of coventry parlor at laurel locks @ 653 laurelwood road, pottstown, pa 19465, behind the coventry mall but to the left along route 724

optional themes of focus:

    sunday, june 10–river poems (& charles bukowski poems, from may 2018)
    sunday, june 24*–cars & coffee poems

any topics of creative writing are welcome for sharing and workshopping during class by those who attend, but we have inspirational topics as prompt ideas, too. please bring a few copies to share with other students, if you can, for anything you write and want to practice reading as well as discussing. but just having your original copy to read from is okay, if that's easier for the writer.

*i'll also be teaching a poetry-collaging workshop (all ages are welcome) at culture den in st. peter's village this same day from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. this event will be held every last sunday of the month from may through at least august 2018.

cost: $20 per student, per class (we usually meet for 2 hours or more)

if we ever have oddly inconvenient weather around the time of classes, i will update those who RSVPed to classes in advance to let them know if we are canceling, rescheduling, or relocating.

if you have any questions, feel free to reach out via poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo dot com.

and if you know anyone who may be interested in our class, feel free to share this blog content onward.

also, if there is anyone who may want to join our class but lives in another area across berks, chester, and montgomery counties, we sometimes travel to a good variety of different places, so let us know, and we can see about planning classes closer to you.

this sunday — a poetry-collaging workshop at culture den in st. peter's village.

if you're looking for a bit of fun near some rocks and creek water next to a bakery this weekend, a poetry-collaging workshop at culture den in st. peter's village might be well worth putting together a sunday adventure.

this workshop is lined up for all last sundays of upcoming months from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. from may through august. 

may 27 - june 24 - july 29 - august 26

to not discourage anyone from participating in consideration of how life is expensive and hard to keep afloat in financially sometimes, we're not directly charging for this workshop. but for those who can afford to support my teaching efforts as a visiting instructor and also the costs to run culture den, in the vein of the art of asking by amanda palmer of the dresden dolls, we'd greatly appreciate money-geared backing. we hope it might be a balance to help across those who can and can't afford to pay for our value. and this workshop has been enthusiastically enjoyed several times across this and other venues in recent months.

we'll be supplying all needed materials, but those who join us are welcome to bring any of their own as well to make their collages even more individualized and custom. and particularly awesome.

animal poems workshops at 3 elementary schools in the exeter township school district.

in early may, i visited lorane, jacksonwald, and owatin creek elementary schools in the exeter township school district to teach my animal poems workshops to all fourth grade classes.

since i worked with all fourth grade classes per school at once, we used a microphone to make sure everyone could hear not only me but also students as they shared their memories of animal-related stories to craft into new poems.

the value of verbs in moving language forward, testing out variations of line breaks and how many lines go into stanzas, and artistic and intentional use of extra spacing between words were some of the main points we talked about in the realm of poetry. and the students did a great job at pulling together freshly vibrant poems all from within their own experiences.

some of the animals brought to the surface of telling across pages with students reading their poems at the end of workshop were birds, squirrels, deer, cows, wild turkeys, chickens, hamsters, and dogs.

workshop moments and students' writings were captured as pictures below thanks to assistance from several teachers in my own minutes away from working the camera.

lorane elementary school

— photo credit: derek denunzio

 

 

jacksonwald elementary school 

— photo credit: justin blatt

  
owatin creek elementary school

— photo credit: matthew hathaway