Hope you had a great Easter! Over the long weekend, between recharging after a tough few weeks and playing umpteen million different things with my beautiful baby girl, I hit my old friends stumble upon and TED. I saw some cool stuff -which I will perhaps share some of another time- but got restless, and decided to go looking for other projects that were perhaps in a similar vein to TED. Surely more of them exist, surely?!
A couple of quick searches later and I was hit with a list of a couple of sites worth checking out, the first I went to was www.dolectures.com, a project dedicated to getting talks from people who have gone and done something. Fantastic! This is exactly what I was looking for, I love TED dearly, but I guess I was really looking for some inspiration from a something a bit more tangible than some of the crazy amazing stuff that people discuss there.
I only got round to watching one lecture and I really loved it. Chris Henrikson from Street Poets.inc asking the question of if poetry can change a person. He framed a really interesting lecture of his experiences from his community work with two of his own poems which both struck a chord with me too. He’s emotive and engaging, and clearly passionate about his work. It’s the first time in a while something has got me to consider getting out there and doing some volunteering.
I’ve never really gone out there and done much charitable or voluntary work, yet I’ve always intended too. These prompts do me some good and keep in on my radar. I’m sure at some point I’ll get off my arse and give back, now just doesn’t feel like the time – any easy excuse I guess.
The other thing I liked was it got me to pen and paper scribbling some ideas that had been bubbling. I’ve been enjoying the ukulele sessions but I’ve not been working on any of my own words for a while and I’m keen to get some more spoken word done soon. The piece I’m writing is called collapsible heroes. I’m actually going to approach it like a real writer and work through a few drafts before sharing rather than my usual groove of sketching, but as soon as it is done, I will share it.
Anyway I really recommend taking the time to watch this lecture. I will go hunting for a bit more of his poetry and to check out a bit more about what the street poets get up to. If I find something I think may be cool to share, of course I will share it here.
