Poetic Automata with Wonderful Idea Co. at Maker Faire Bay Area

Maker Faire workshop in collaboration with the Wonderful Idea Co. was just breathtaking in its quiet loveliness. Amidst a fabulous carnival like/world’s fair atmosphere (e.g. a brass marching band wove through through the large tent where the workshop spaces were located), we focused on the theme of Attention, read poetry by Mary Oliver and Czesław Miłosz (the Miłosz poem a beloved one learned from my Esti and Elisha’s (my sis and brother-in-law) wedding invitation). We created our own unique erasure poetry on the foundation of a prose essay by Mary Oliver, and shared our reflections b’chevrutah, in learning pairs. On that foundation we designed automata with wood and wire and words and bits of other materials to convey something from the poems. And then we shared our gallery of poem artifacts, listening and looking with attention while the activity in the big tent buzzed around us.

Check out the Wonderful Idea Co.’s write up of this workshop here for their take!