Recently, your editors decided to take their writing on the road...to Chicago! (Local, we know, but we love it) Our mission: to write, work on this writing blog, and of course, have a blast!
Why take a poetry-centric day trip? It's simple, really. Inspiration lives outside: in books, in libraries, in graffiti, in architecture, in people----in short, the world. Your city is a great place to get started! Here's what we had to say about our first (hopefully, of many!) poetry adventure:
Favorite or most inspiring moment of the day?
E: We'd been taking pictures of the ice on the lake, which had cracked and refrozen in some intricate and random patterns, when we walked to the end of the pier. I looked down and saw this piece of graffiti:
Not only was it poetic; it was found within the first thirty minutes of our trip. I took it as a good sign for how the rest of our adventure would go, and I was not disappointed.
A: Our whole trip to the city, though we had a little checklist of places we wanted to photograph, was spontaneous in ways that reminded me of how valuable it is to give yourself the time to look around. There are so many beautiful places in every city if you look up from your phone, your feet, whatever you usually do while trudging through the snow. My favorite moment was actually our last stop: Marc Chagall's mosaic mural "Four Seasons". It's right outside on the Chase Bank Plaza on South Dearborn Street. And, I'm telling you---it's truly extraordinary. It almost makes me wish I was a banker if it meant I could walk outside and see this mural whenever I wanted to. There's really no way for me to show you the whole thing, but here are some photos we snapped while we were there:
Favorite moment or two from our freewrite sessions?
A: We stopped in the cafe of the Art Institute to have the most epic coffee of our lives.....and to freewrite. We used our Floodmark Word List prompt for this one, and added a few words we found on a poster around us for the Art Institute, too. Here's what I came up with:
E: When we sat down in front of Chagall's America Windows, it was one of the more quiet moments of our time at the Art Institute. Sure, some of the other exhibits were equally quiet, but there was a sort of buzz in most rooms as people took in the artwork. Sitting in front of the windows, though, there was a moment of silent clarity; I couldn't hear anyone else walk through the room. I noticed parts of the windows I hadn't seen before, but felt the same entranced pull towards them I had felt the first time at the Institute. Here's a working piece from my America Windows freewrite:
Why explore your city?
E: One of the concerns we had going into the city and snapping pictures was that anyone would be able to tell we had been in Chicago. The truth, though, was that we saw nooks and crannies of the city we'd never seen before (or never taken the time to examine). Any time you allow yourself to really explore, you're going to find something that surprises you, even if its' small, like a piece of graffiti on a rusted piece of metal.
A: So much of our time is spent in transit from point A to point B that it's really easy to forget about what's in between. For Emily and I, what was in-between the Art Institute and Navy Pier was a homeless man sleeping in a tarp (whom we accidentally discovered while photographing graffiti--oops), intricate cracking ice over Lake Michigan, a snow sculpture contest, a free Kind granola bar, lunch in a garden with singing birds (yes, in Chicago in the winter---Navy Pier has one!), two penguins (I'm not even kidding, there were actually penguins that we stumbled across), and some really great conversation. And that's just on the way TO Navy Pier----we spent the whole rest of the day wandering elsewhere. In short, don't be afraid to let adventure find you because sometimes you see penguins. Even if one of said penguins spent the whole time licking its feathery crotch.
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| In reference to the penguin, of course. |
Be on the lookout for more snippets of our Chicago trip!
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