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Sparking Writers' Minds Using Abantu By Sheila Bender
An African Metaphor Game
What is Abantu?
Years ago during a summer writing workshop at Centrum Foundation in Port Townsend, WA, poet Robert Hass (who went on to serve as a recent U.S. Poet Laureate) taught students a short couplet form that he had read was an oral tradition among the Abantu people of Africa. In class, he recited this couplet:
The sound of an elephant's tusk cracking The voice of an angry man
He told us that the couplet was an example of the oral poetry that Abantu tribespeople created as they worked. One person would offer an image and another would then, as the rhythm of the work allowed, offer an image in response. The participants were creating something like similes (the sound of an elephant's tusk cracking is like the voice of an angry man) and seizing the opportunity to use figurative language and move through the world of the senses by association.
Whether you imagine that the elephant's tusk breaks as a consequence of the animal knocking into a tree or that the cracking is the noise the tusk causes when the elephant uses it to fell a tree, the sound has a tangible meaning when compared to the voice of an angry man. Of course, the description is more tangible to those who have heard the cracking first-hand, but this reminds us of the particular and often local quality of images. It is just this particularity that makes images so important in effective writing, and working in the abantu form will certainly facilitate writers’ trust in the power of images.
Foster the Use of Images in Writing
Whether you are working alone, with another or a group, propose a first line for a abantu using a common image that appeals to the five senses. You can state the image in different ways to appeal to more than one sense:
Clothes fresh from the dryer
Clothes tumbling in the dryer
Clothes going into the dryer
Next ask the others (or yourself) to "answer back" to these lines with an image that makes them (or you) experience the same physical sensation as from hearing the first line:
Clothes fresh from the dryer The patch of carpet where my cat lies in sunshine
Clothes tumbling in the dryer Leaves and paper blown by the wind
Clothes going into the dryer Seaweed lying on the beach
Next ask everyone to contribute first lines for more abantu by offering images from their day:
The cornflakes in my bowl
Waiting for the school bus
Kids eating in the cafeteria
Sitting at my desk
The lights in the ceiling
Lockers along the hallway
Suggest that each person respond to the given list of lines, orally or in writing. Here are some sample responses to the lines above:
The cornflakes in my bowl Sand bars in a bay
Waiting for the school bus A jellybean out of the bag
Kids eating in the cafeteria Undulating kelp
Sitting at my desk Piloting a space craft
The lights in the ceiling Egg cartons in the supermarket
Lockers along the hallway An army waiting
If most of the images turn out to be visual in content (which most often happens at first) encourage those participating to put sound or smell into their work instead of relying totally on visual images and likenesses:
My mother's voice Water in a fountain
My baby brother's voice Sirens behind our car
The star jasmine at night Powder on a baby
Bubble gum out of the wrapper The plastic skin of a new Barbie doll
Taste may be harder:
A cracker with no butter Brown paper bag in my mouth
The rubber bands on my braces Tofu
Sometimes the sense of touch needs developing and you can direct attention to doing this by asking for first lines that are about textures:
My wool hat on my head Blades of dry grass
Touching the skin of a dolphin The smooth part of the peel under an eggshell
The rough skin of an orange Stucco on a building
By developing facility with this kind of association writers will reclaim an innate way of looking at, touching, smelling, tasting, and listening to the world. It will keep the cogs of the writing mind oiled and ready to go.
Extending the Lesson
After spending time developing talent with abantu, insert abantu into your prose when writing description:
When I woke up this morning, I went downstairs for breakfast. My mother had put cornflakes in a bowl for me and I poured milk over the brown flakes. They peeked out of the milk, sand bars in the bay where my father took me fishing.
Not only can we see what this writer is doing and facing, he or she may have a beginning to a really good story about going fishing!
Keep the Exercise Going
Make this abantu exercise a continuous game. Kids, teachers, and family members can take turns being the source of first lines and await their students', classmates' or family members' response lines. Do abantu by e-mail with grandparents or families or as a car game. Some families might want to keep a journal for recording the abantu or perhaps post the couplets on their refrigerators.
No matter which way you keep the game of writing abantu going, valuing associational thinking will definitely encourage good writing and the spirit of play essential in its creation.
Sheila Bender has just launched LifeJournal for Writers (www.lifejournal.com/wr) a new software product that offers writers the inspiration, prompts, and guidance they need to create, revise, send out, and track their submissions while keeping specific journals. She teaches and online poetry tutorial, Writing It Real: Creating Poems from Life Experience, for Absolute Write and publishes an online magazine for those who write from personal experience at www.writingitreal.com. Her most recent book is Writing and Publishing Personal Essays from Silver Threads in San Diego.
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