Where's Your Happy Place? - The Chicago Poetry Center

Where’s Your Happy Place?

It’s the second week of our residency together and as we get to know each other, students are also feeling the stress of current events in the city and the stress it has caused. With that, we spent this session diving deep into our own happy places. Together, we read the poem “Knoxville, Tennessee” by Nikki Giovanni and discussed the use of imagery throughout the poem. Students identified aspects of the 5 senses within the poem and began to form a mental picture of what Giovanni’s happy place looked like as a child. We discussed imagery as a tool in poetry and students began to create their own poems representing their happy place using guiding questions on a graphic organizer. Each guided question encouraged students to describe their happy place using each of our senses. Feel free to dive into these happy places below and stay for as long as you’d like!

In My Happy Place J.C.

I see a place that looks like the 80s and 90s

There are malls, restaurants, parties, and waterparks

I hear indie music, 80s and 90s music, 808 synths, and a Yamaha DX7

I can tough arcade games, plushies, playgrounds

smooth and soft

I can eat pizza, Coke soda, chips, and burgers

There’s a smell of nostalgia and sweet

It smells like childhood.

In My Happy Place C.D.

I see downtown Chicago

I hear birds singing

There is the sound of waves

I can touch the book “The Outsiders”

I feel like I am swimming with dolphins

I can eat chocolate chips banana muffins

There’s a smell of love

It smells like rose pink flowers.