Last spring I began an experiment in poetry and creativity with a healthy dose of silliness: the Door Poetry experiment.
To summarize: I have a metal office door, and it’s on a fairly well-traveled hallway in the lower level of my building at the university. Students from three departments use this building often, and many exit by passing my door.
Sometimes they stop to make poems.
I bought a bunch of Magnetic Poetry kits and covered my door with them. I was told that the students would be immature and I’d have to take it down, and so far it hasn’t been that bad. Maybe once every other week, someone will put something “witty” on my door that I need to break up.
Most of them are short. Some are poignant; some are silly. Sometimes they start small, and then others will come along and build on them. It’s not just students, either: I’ve seen (and heard tales of) professors, secretaries, janitors, administrators…
Everyone has a little bit of poetry in them.
So here are a few samples from the first two weeks of the fall semester, courtesy of the anonymous Door Poets.
This might be a response to my Instagram complaints about the removal of my Starbucks machine down the hall from my office. 