Mossellany Monday #12: Moss Poetry
Art and Energy have been working with Plymouth Culture on a series of Creative Climate Conversations. Our conversations with creatives across Plymouth helped shaped our new book Be More Moss: A Mossellany of Questions for Life.
Each week we’re going to spotlight a simple activity from the book for you to try, it could be on your own, with friends & family or with a community group:
📜✒️MOSS POETRY: Unlocking Creativity through Poetry and Wordplay
The beauty of language is that it allows us to express ourselves in infinite ways. Poetry, in particular, is a powerful tool to discover and explore new ideas. It may not always be perfect, but it is a great way to communicate.
Here's a creative exercise to try: take some time to experience mosses with all your senses. Then, create a list of words that come to mind and use them to craft your own poem. Remember, this is a personal exercise, so don't worry about impressing others - just have fun with it!
If you’d like to, you can share your poetry and prose with us on our BurytheGiant.Club which is free to join and everyone is welcome.
Art and Energy put together Be More Moss: A Mossellany of Questions for Life for anyone who likes to ponder, doodle and have new ideas - we invite you to draw on your imagination and get creative with this miscellany of facts and quotes about marvellous mosses, with activity pages waiting for your pen and stories of our past and future.
We've designed this book so that it can be used on your own, or as a group activity. It's full of moss-inspired activities and prompts that help people bypass eco-anxiety and think about things in their lives that are relevant to responding to the climate and ecological emergency. It's suitable for teenagers, young adults, older persons, parents or grandparents.
Be More Moss: A Mossellany of Questions for Life is available to read and download, free of charge: https://issuu.com/.../final_be_more_moss_a_mossellany_of...
Treat yourself to a printed copy for £15: https://www.artandenergy.org/.../be-more-moss-a...
Read more about our work with Plymouth Culture and the Creative Climate Conversations project: https://www.artandenergy.org/.../creative-climate...
“I’m down in the foss
Where the moss child grows.
Where the slime and the mould
And the wind howls and blows.
On the arms of stems green
A marvel to be seen,
The sheen, the keen
Bright eyes that have been.
I’ve known you forever
Before I was born.
On the rocks you clung on
The dusk, night and the dawn.
Tiny tendrils poke out
Bog moss sucks with its snout,
The water, the vapour,
The rain all about.
It stores it, claws it
Down to the bottom
The earth truly sodden
Like mattresses of cotton.
So soft, I would wear you
Make silk garments of blue dew
A crown so majestic
You grew it, who knew?”
