Creating Pillow Books for Artistic Inspiration

The Pillow Book is a poet’s store of imagery that might later be used in spontaneous poetry as needed socially. The book seems to be a holding place for the artist to gather and consider images. The author is thoughtful in teasing out the universal, and as you read the entries, you have a sense of knowing this kind of moment or image.

In order to enhance my student's observations on the poetic features of their lives, I will have them create a pillow book as a resource for artistic or literary creativity. Each student will be issued a composition book, and the sole focus of that book will be list making and short writing.

We will begin the Pillow Book with the study of the writings of Shonagon- I will use the title of each of her chapters as the prompt for the daily entry. I will initially give the students copies of her writing, but as time progresses, I will project the writing and read it aloud to them as the prompt for their own daily entry...
edited by jmcmanus on 8/13/2015