Quieting the Left Brain Critic

When I facilitate writing workshops, I use poetry as a way to enter the intuitive mind. I believe poetry opens the door to the subconscious. The difference between the left brain and the right brain is that the left brain tends to put things in order, to make sense of things, and the right brain makes leaps of associations, what is similar and what is different, according to the senses. In this way, right brain thinking can be more visual, visceral, emotional, and imaginative. It doesn't care if things fit together, it cares that there is a pattern, symmetry, memory and new connections. 

Our left brain is also where our inner critic lives and pokes at us when we are being creative, telling us we are not doing it right, we aren't good enough and we don't deserve to play.

By putting the pen to paper and keeping it moving without listening to the voice saying we aren't choosing the perfect word or right word, we dive beneath the surface. 

The benefits of using poetry as a jump start for writing:

Poetry provides a cultural context and expressive model that supports openness and emotional honesty.

It connects us to our intuitive imagination.

Reading and writing poetry is a natural process for people in pain.

Poetry provides a private experience where an individual can control the outcome.

Writing poetry is joyful and self-affirming even if the topic is painful.

It is a skill that we can continue to access.

It is a way of connecting with others through reading and publishing.

(excerpted from Writing with At-Risk Youth: the PONGO Teen Writing Method) 

Here is a poem and promt I use often in my workshops. The poem has humor and also the specific details: the red dress, the onion rings, the carnival ride. We read the poem and then I suggest the prompt. We don't analyze the poem as it returns us to the left brain. Sometimes the images in the poem trigger our own memories and sometimes they are a catalyst to give ourselves permission to write what we have not dared to speak, or even think.  

Antilamentation

by Dorianne Laux

 Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read

to the end just to find out who killed the cook, not
the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication, not
the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punch line, the door or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don't regret those.

Prompt: what I regret and what I don't regret