Imagination is Necessary

Photo belongs to lepaif.geo

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
- Albert Einstein

Anybody who watched Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends knows that all it takes is a little imagination, and you can do almost anything. Mac created his imaginary friend Bloo at the wee age of five with just a single thought. It’s much the same with poetry – with just one thought, a whole word of possibilities is at your fingertips. When you put it that way, poetry sounds a lot less scary, doesn’t it? It sounds even less scary when you, the poet, have some ideas to feed that imagination. And what could better feed imagination than Foster’s?

Let’s try the picture poem. A picture is normally worth a thousand words, so just one poem should be a cinch, right? Pick any Fosters-related image, either while watching an episode or surfing the Internet, and go from there. A Bloo fan? Write about his crazy antics at the house. Maybe you love that surreal scene where Terrence thinks he’s dreaming up Mac’s slumber party. Your favorite piece of fanart is always a possibility too. But don’t write about just what you see – focus on what you’re feeling, what the characters might be feeling…or you could choose to go the more abstract route and just write about something as simple as the colors in the picture. Be as creative and imaginative as you like.

Before I leave you guys to find your own picture and imagine up a poem of your own, here’s a little something I came up with from this fun Foster’s comic strip drawn by the big Cheese creator himself, Craig McCracken:

6-3-07 Color by *CMcC on deviantART

No!
No, no, no, no, no
No, no, no, no, no
Ten times no!
The things he’ll do for
No!
No cookie-stealing
No dinner-spewing
No hair-cutting
No arrow-shooting
No ball-throwing
No bra-slinging
No toilet-stinking
No socket-prodding
No jumping from the highest story
Honestly,
The things he’ll do for no…
Make me wonder just what I’ll do
To hear “yes”