Woodworking is Truth, Truth Woodworking

If only the poetry we studied in high school had been like the following, I might have actually enjoyed it.

As it was, reading poetry at best bored me and at worst frustrated me. I was like, "Geez, get to the point!"

But in Drew Langsner's latest newsletter from Country Workshops, he included some poems that 6th and 7th grade students wrote in a class taught by his friend, a teacher in Saudi Arabia. The exercise was to write a poem about handmade spoons and butter paddles:

I enter the room

And see the wood blocks

Waiting to be carved.

~Haiku by Riya Benoy

wood

plain, brown

chiseling, sanding, chiseling

It is almost done.

sanding, oiling, admiring

smooth, finished

Spoon

~Diamante by Phillip Parent

Carving

Creativity comes in every way –

A block of wood might

Really be important,

Varying in shape and size –

Never ending forms, each spoon

Getting better each day.

~Acrostic by Taylor Bell

A rough block of wood,

Carved,

Sanded,

Beautiful with walnut oil,

First light, then dark.

Handmade.

~Free Verse by Kaily Saltaformaggio

Making things with our hands is a form of poetry. And I was lucky enough to enroll in a hand tool class being taught by Jögge Sundqvist this summer at Country Workshops where we'll learn to make bowls and spoons, Swedish style.

Hopefully, I'll come away from the course well versed in making them.

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The spoons in the top photo were carved by Jögge Sundqvist.

The spoons in the second photo were carved by Drew Langsner.