Practicing Poetry Pit Stops

Have you ever heard someone speak to the poetry of spaces (Gaston Bachelard) or the spaces in poetry (Sue Goyette)? I’m going to take this minute to advocate for the inclusion of writing poetry in the design process. Writing poetry is an act of observation, much like designing spaces - it is a kind of paying attention to both real environments (things, people, actions) and surreal environments (emotions, thoughts, imagination). You respond to these observations through a specific language of your choosing like English or wood framed construction and how you use this language influences the meaning and ultimately the experience of others. That’s not to say I think poems should be written about buildings (eww), nor should buildings or spaces be designed as poetry (maybe less eww). This is simply an acknowledgement of how these two mediums definitely share a boiler room. I’d also like to note that poetry and spatial design are both much more expansive than this somewhat crude reduction I have just presented. However, the intention here is to elicit a tangible comparison that might feel like picking up and comparing two different brands of your favourite canned soup in the supermarket. Upon closer inspection, you may realize that, although different, their ingredients are identical, the steel cans come from the same factory, and their nutritional values mirror each other.

I experienced this comparison while I was studying poetry during my architectural thesis. I discovered quite quickly that writing often became a dirt road that led to architectural design thinking, even when the writing was entirely dislocated from my project subject matter. No epiphany design moments would occur, but due to the activation of the same forms of visual imagining, use of metaphor, and composition, creative writing would cultivate a paratelic – playful, spontaneous, and non-goal oriented – environment. My spatial design ideas were familiar with this environment and, therefore, could easily get up and wander around, but now without me having to pay direct attention to them. This would allow them to do so more easily when I started designing spaces again. To use a playful example, it would be like going to a party in the same apartment building that you live in but on a different floor. The rooms in this other apartment are all in the same spots. The faucets and doorknobs turn how you remember, but the interiors feel new and alien, with different lamps, seating arrangements, cushions, art. When you return home, you are back in your space again, but suddenly you have new ways of imagining your old rooms. Much like visiting this neighbour’s apartment, I would like to share some of my own writing that helped me imagine my old rooms in new ways, so to speak. I believe this poem, which has nothing to do with architecture but was written alongside my thesis work , helped move me through one of the tougher design blocks I have experienced.

5-7-8

In–

Don’t wait.

Don’t rush.

Life’s rich.

Try the squid.

Feel the beat.

Hold–

Listen, really.

Floss.

Take up your space.

Trust yourself.

Don’t always trust yourself.

Be more like the geese.

Take your shoes off.

And out–

Sell all your things.

Tell them how you feel.

Know that you will die.

Say what you mean.

Stop being cool.

Fail more.

Relax your shoulders.

Carry your home around.

So next time you are designing something, a space or otherwise, think about writing a poem. It doesn’t have to be about anything related, it doesn’t have to rhyme, it doesn’t even have to be good. Just explore. Those design ideas tend to wander around a lot more when we aren’t always looking at them. As a lovely mentor once said to me, in design, writing is your left foot, drawing is your right. You need both to walk.