Choose Your Poetic Spirit Animal

Choose an animal to represent your emotion or personality--turn it into a poem!

Franny Choi's collection Floating, Brilliant, Gone features a poem called "The Hindsight Octopus" which is in a form similar to that of a zoo info plaque:

THE HINDSIGHT OCTOPUS

HABITAT: Northern Atlantic Ocean caves and Greyhound luggage compartments; often, several miles from the nearest ATM.

DIET: Omnivorous. Common prey include missed appointments, mistakenly sent text messages, unsuccessful jokes, wrong turns, right turns that look wrong for the first few blocks, and all manners of small errors.

BEHAVIOR: The Hindsight Octopus is most notable for its ability to latch onto mistakes and insecurities with a vice-like grip. A normally shy and elusive creature, the Hindsight Octopus will often surprise its prey by camouflaging itself beneath a bed of justifications for its territorial habits. When hunting, the octopus will seize its prey with its extremely strong tentacles and continue to tighten its grip until it faints from exhaustion, often releasing a storm of ocean currents from special tear ducts in its many eyes. The Hindsight Octopus has often been found stalking the ocean floor alone or retreating to its cave after such instances. It has also been discovered that the octopus’s output of ink increases after these hunts, most notably in a intricate retracing of its steps. It is only after reenacting each moment several times through elaborate displays of ink that the Hindsight Octopus is able to lay the skeleton of its prey to rest in the garden surrounding its cave. Though this animal is widely known for its “performances,” scientists disagree as to whether this behavior is beneficial to the creature, or a debilitating evolutionary fluke.

DID YOU KNOW?: The only way to kill a Hindsight Octopus is to release it into the wild.

---

Start with brainstorming a list of emotions felt today or through the week:

• brave

• stressed

• insecure

• confident

• pain

• frustrated

• tired

• angry

• bliss/zen

• lonely

• excited

• fearless

• nervous

• invisible

• vibrant

• bored

• funny

Choose one to work with, maybe generate a stronger synonym or list of synonyms.

Brainstorm some headings:

• Habitat

• Diet

• Behavior

• Did you know?

• Lifespan

• Sleeping patterns

• Migration patterns

• Appearance

• Mating Season/Habits/Rituals

• Group Name

• Size of Teeth

Choose at least three headings for your poem.

Here are some animal options I thought of:

• Fox

• Owl

• Bear

• Zebra

• Deer/Elk (Doe/Buck)

• Goat

• Horse/Mare/Stallion/Unicorn

• Hippopotamus

• Ferret

• Dog/Wolf

• Cat/Lion/Tiger/Panther

• Iguana/Gecko/Chameleon

• Parrot/Bird

• Dragon

• Monkey

• Elephant

I figured this would be a good exercise to challenge your imagination and creativity; feel free to share your results!

Happy Writing!

#animals #poetry #writing #zoo #emotions #personality #spiritanimal #brainstorming #imagination #creativity #challenge