Education Commons^™

Why Poetry Comics? An Overview Of The Form's Origins, Creative Potential, And Pedagogical Benefits, Mara Beneway

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Abstract: Poetry comics are a subgenre or hybrid form that appropriate elements and techniques from its foundational genres: poetry and comics. A form that braids literary traditions with visual art, poetry comics’ rich history and metaphorical possibility make for innate and deep engagement. This paper offers a brief history of visual poetry, an explicit definition of poetry comics along with theoretical context for engagement, and pedagogical approaches to using poetry comics in the creative writing classroom. In a discussion focused on interpretation and individual meaning-making, I reference Bianca Stone’s creative work, Sarah Minor’s scholarship on “textual reading” vs. “visual seeing,” …