Posts Tagged ‘group poetry’

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
We have alot of men residents at our facility. They love baking sweets. We were baking brownies today. One gentleman, with the use of only one arm, was grasping the knife and spreading the gooey rich chocolate batter all over the bottom of the pan. “Chocolate is sexy,” he said with a charming smile. I laughed and put the pan in the oven. I had an idea. “While the Brownies are baking, let’s write a poem about Brownies and we can start with Scott’s statement for the first line.” Each one added words. I made sure that the beginning of each rhyming couplet had a word at the end that was easy to rhyme with. Here is what they came up with:

Chocolate is sexy, Scotty said
It’s even better than raisin bread.
It’s pure unadulterated batter
Eating it makes us happier
It makes our lives so very sweet
Gooey brownies are quite a treat
They make us very mean and smart
The beat goes on for us old farts.

Five dementia residents were circled around me. I read some poetry and stopped on the rhyming lines to see if they could fill in the words. A couple of them blurted the words out easily. The others enjoyed the rhythm and sounds. “Let’s write our own rhyming poem,” I said. Let’s come up with a topic. Out of the blue, Eva leaned over to me and said “Did you know that I didn’t used to wear shoes. I couldn’t because my feet would swell.” I grabbed at the line and wrote it down. “ Let’s try to come up with a rhyming line,” I said. We ended up going around the circle talking about what each person liked or didn’t like to wear. It was personal and stimulating. They loved it.

A Poem about Clothes

Eva couldn’t at one time wear shoes.
Her feet would swell… what could she do?
She cannot wear a woolen sweater.
She wears cotton instead… that’s even better.
Ann likes to wear shirts that are red.
“I won’t wear black” she said, shaking her head.
Mary likes to wear a white sweater
And wearing blue is even better.
Rosie doesn’t like to wear scratchy clothes.
It causes itching on skin and nose.
Thelma likes wearing a plain old dress.
A bright and pretty dress… oh yes!