TL;DR Version: In this fifth look back into my past for the #WALKMYWORLD project, I experiment with some poetry writing, play with Zeega, and post to Poetry Genius.

For learning event five of the #WALKMYWORLD project, I’m continuing my “private journey, made public.” As I’ve stated earlier, I’m using this opportunity to take time to think, create, and share elements of my life to share with my son. I’m doing this in public, and choosing to share some of my private, innermost thoughts. My thinking is that this allows me time to create some form of multimodal documentation of things that I can share with my son, and have some dialogue later in life. If this motivates, or resonates with you…good. If it inspires you to go and create…good. Most of what I’ve created and shared throughout this journey was motivated and inspired by others in the project.

This week I have been thinking about the poem Letter to a Poet by Robert Hass. In thinking about the lines in the poem, and what I took them to be, I decided to write my own poem (at the urging of Kevin Hodgson). I’m continuing to think about a time and facet of my life, and finding intersections between the work of Hass, and my own experiences. Finally, in thinking about my life, there is a song by Ozzy Osbourne (Mama, I’m Coming Home) that brings me right back to those moments.

I decided for learning event five, I would challenge myself to write a poem, and construct some form of multimodal content to accompany the poem. I remixed the Hass poem, and the lyrics from the Ozzy song to create my own work. I then used Zeega, a tool that Kevin Hodgson used previously during #WALKMYWORLD. The end result is a poem (or remix…depending on your angle), and a piece of digital storytelling.

I uploaded the poem From the Apple of Your Eye to Poetry Genius to allow people to annotate, respond, and connect. I also created, and shared the accompanying piece this morning on Twitter. Enjoy.

Image CC by Nishanth Jois