The Generative Area:
A Mind for Imagination
During a difficult conversation, you look down and see what looks like a giraffe in the carpet. This phenomenon—the human brain’s ability to find patterns and images even where none exist—is called pareidolia. Research how pareidolia works. Then discuss with your team: would humanity be better off if we only saw what was literally in front of us? When does pareidolia most hurt us—and when does it most help us?
Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon where the brain perceives familiar patterns—such as faces, animals, or objects—in random or ambiguous stimuli. This happens because the human brain is wired to recognize meaningful shapes, especially faces, as a survival mechanism. Pareidolia isn’t limited to vision—people also experience it with sounds (e.g., hearing voices in static) or even smells.
Examples of pareidolia include seeing faces in clouds, tree bark, or rock formations, spotting shapes in shadows or stains (e.g., "the man in the moon"), hearing hidden messages in reversed audio or white noise.
The brain's fusiform face area (FFA) is highly sensitive to facial patterns, leading us to detect them even where they don’t exist. This tendency likely evolved to help humans quickly identify friends, foes, or threats in their environment. Famous cases include religious figures appearing in food (like the "Virgin Mary grilled cheese toast") or "Mars face" in satellite images.
A mimetolithic pattern is a pattern created on rocks that may come to mimic recognizable forms through the random processes of formation, weathering, and erosion. A well-known example is the Face on Mars, a rock formation on Mars that resembled a human face in certain satellite photos.
Many cultures recognize pareidolic images in the disc of the full moon, including the human face known as the Man in the Moon in many Northern Hemisphere cultures and the Moon rabbit in East Asian and indigenous American cultures.
The Rorschach inkblot test uses pareidolia in an attempt to gain insight into a person's mental state. The Rorschach is a projective test that elicits thoughts or feelings of respondents.
Starting from 2021, an Internet meme emerged for Among Us, where users presented everyday items such as dogs, statues, garbage cans, that looked like the game's "crewmate" protagonists.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Are some settings better for creativity? “Beginnings are contagious there, they’re always setting stages there”—the song “Once Upon a Time in New York City” praises the Big Apple as a place for dreamers, fervent with opportunities for reinvention. Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald, among many other writers of their era, hung out with other writers in Paris. Explore the history of the salon, or gatherings where creative and intellectual spirits meet frequently to share and develop ideas, then discuss with your team: is there a place in your country that beckons to the creatively-minded? Has the salon been replaced in the modern world by the Internet—and if so, how?
Oliver & Company is a 1988 American animated musical adventure film produced by Walt Disney. It is inspired by the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. In the film, Oliver is a homeless kitten who joins a gang of dogs to survive in the streets. Among other changes, the setting of the film was relocated from 19th century London to 1980s New York City, Fagin's gang is made up of dogs (one of which is Dodger), and Sykes is a loan shark.
The song is composed by Huey Lewis and the lyrics describe NYC as a place where things are tough, turning pages, and happening and where dreams can come true.
Salons fall in and out of trend depending on the era, but for a solid 400 years or so, from about 1500 – 1900, salons were popular across Europe. The term salon suggests some modicum of regularity, say, weekly, where the enlightened, artistic, disgruntled, the wealthy or ambitious came together for conversation, connection and community.
The earliest roots of salon can be found in Ancient Greece and Rome, the first recorded salons took place in Italy in the 15th Century, and these were a precursor to the Enlightenment Period. They were an opportunity for artists, poets, musicians, thinkers, the Renaissance intellectual glitteratti and their hangers-on, to come together across social classes to hob-nob and share ideas out of the scrutiny of the Roman Catholic Church.
Two noble Italian women, sister-in-laws in Renaissance Italy, were famous for hosting these Italian salons: Isabella d’Este (1474-1533) and Elisabetta Gonzaga (1471 – 1526). The two of them wrote letters back and forth to each other often so the intricacies of their lives are well-documented. Their salons were written about by Baldassare Castiglionein in The Book of the Courtier, which set the standards for how one was to behave, speak and dress at these Italian Renaissance salons. Soon France became infected with the Salon craze.
In Rue St. Honore in Paris, in the 17th and 18th centuries, philosophers, authors, musicians, poets and other interesting and educated people with points of view came together to talk and share ideas about science, politics, literature and art. Female hosts were known as salonniere and became the center of influence, inviting and curating, which was rare in a male-dominant society. Women were not allowed formal education during this time, so the salons also provided an acceptable way to educate oneself. Being invited to a salon was serious business and a sign of social connections.
Two well known French salonnierre Catherine de Vivionne, the Marquess de Rambouillet. She was originally from Italy and did not like the French Court so she set up a salon in her estate where people spoke intimately and openly without fear of persecution or punishment. Many famous people came through her salons in the mid-1600s. Another French salonierre or salonista was Madeline de Scudery, known for creating a faminist utopia, where she forbade romantic pursuits, including herself. She said that her salon was its own sovereign country within her heart and created a map to achieve her affection
called La Carte de Tendre. Being part of her salon was a rite of passage for Parisian aristocracy.
Under Napolean, Salons fizzled out of France for the first half of the 1800s with him banishing salonista Germaine de Stael for "teaching people to think who had never thought before or who had forgotten how to think." When salons returned in the later part 1800s, it was focused on modern art exhibitions and literature. They were led by two American expatriates Natalie Clifford Barney and Gertrude Stein, Jewish feminist authors. They
hosted legendary people including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound. Natalie's place in Paris had a Masonic Temple she dubbed The Temple of Friendship. Her salons ran for 60 years on Friday nights except when she fled to Italy during Nazi occupation. Stein's brother brought in artists including Picasso. Stein also collected Matisse, Cezanne and Renoir paintings. She was deemed the "Mother of Modernism".
Salons in America became popular with the Harlem Renaissance in New York. A'lelia Walker's salon hosted iconic writers like Langston Hughes and Zora Hurston. Walker later launched a direct-to-consumer beauty product company and was the premier arts patron, philanthropist and salonista of her time. She was not alone, other women
were also hosted salons, including author Zora Hurston. Ruth Logan Roberts and Georgia Douglas Johnson gathered leaders to talk about African-American politics, arts and literature.
Salons became popular in the mid-20th century and some became too political and disbanded due to the Red Scare, fear of Communism under the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Salka Viertel's salon in Santa Monica of WWII exiles-tuned-showbiz folks including Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and Albert Einstein. It seems whenever the world is anxious for new ideas and ready to turn the page, salons start popping up. With Internet forums, has salons lost their appeal?
Consider the neurobiology of imagination: what actually happens in your brain when you are imagining things? Explore the terms below, then hypothesize with your team: how might a person’s imagination be affected if you alter one or more of these elements? How do they relate to emotions, belief, suppositions, and fantasy?
We can define imagery as the production of mental images associated with previous percepts, and imagination as the faculty of forming mental images of a novel character relating to something that has never been actually experienced by the subject but at a great extent emerges from his inner world. The two processes are intimately related and imagery can arguably be considered as one of the main components of imagination. Two concepts related to imagination is exaptation and redeployment. Exaptation is when a trait or feature, or structure of an organism that takes on a new function when none previously existed or that differs from its original function, the brain structure is reused for another purpose. So, neural function were originally designed to help perform certain functions like motor skills, but later developed into "tinkering" combined mental perceptions and concepts to create new "mental objects."
Imagery: the production of explicit or implicit mental pictures or images.
imagination: the act or power of forming mental images that is not actually present or directly experienced.
Neuronal systems have two capabilities: to perform a function and to create a internal theater of the object through internal visualization. Different neurons have different functions and many are involved in the process of imagination.
One critical type is mirror neurons, which mirror the actions you observe inside your own brain. Neuroscientists suggest that these systems have been through evolution to develop into imaginative simulations for emotions, actions and experience.
Another key concept is default mode network (DMN) which can integrate various sensory inputs, like when we are daydreaming. It makes up our inner theater where we construct alternate realities, and internal narratives and future scenarios - our inner world.
In mammals with large brains, Von Economo neurons (VEN), a large spindle-shaped neurons, play a role in long-range fast information
information transfer and integration along with specific projections. It is responsible for self-awareness, emotions, and complex decision-making, helping us imagine ourselves in different roles.
Last but not the least, functional modules in the brain can be assembled to form mosaics capable of highly integrated actions. They work through both writing transmission (direct connections) and also volume transmissions (signal diffusing through brain fluids). Astrocytes and the extracellular matrix regulate these connections. There is not straight forward explanation, it is what neuroscientists call interaction dominant dynamic where one change can trigger other changes in function. These in combination allows for imagination to be unique and unexpected for everyone, ranging from creative ideas to personal emotions drawing from different experiences, memories and feelings.
Memory is deeply intertwined with emotions, beliefs, suppositions, and fantasy—shaping how we recall the past and interpret reality. Some key concepts to understand how memory works. Emotional memories are stronger: The amygdala (emotion center) and hippocampus (memory hub) work together, making emotionally charged events (joy, trauma) easier to recall. Memory is also triggered by your mood and it's called mood-congruent recall: Being sad makes you more likely to remember sad events (and vice versa). Also, our memory is not perfect, rather being distorted by emotions. Strong feelings can amplify or alter memories (e.g., remembering a childhood birthday as "perfect" despite minor mishaps).
Linking back to other WSC related concepts, memory has preferences. Because of confirmation bias. We unconsciously favor memories that align with our beliefs. And we sometimes shift our memories to adapt to new ideas we have about ourselves. In some people, false memories can override real memories. Sounds a little like brainwashing.
When details are fuzzy, the brain inserts assumptions and fills in the details, this is called schemas fill gaps. Vivid imagination can make it feel like something is a memory. In terms of fantasy, memory can play tricks on us, mixing truths with imagination, for example forgetting whether a detail came from experience, a movie, or a daydream.
In the philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and cognitive science, a mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of "perceiving" some object, event, or scene but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses. There are sometimes episodes, particularly on falling asleep (hypnagogic imagery) and waking up (hypnopompic imagery), when the mental imagery may be dynamic, phantasmagoric, and involuntary in character, repeatedly presenting identifiable objects or actions, spilling over from waking events, or defying perception, presenting a kaleidoscopic field, in which no distinct object can be discerned. Mental imagery can sometimes produce the same effects as would be produced by the behavior or experience imagined.
Historically, the notion of a "mind's eye" goes back at least to Cicero's reference to mentis oculi. A biological basis for mental imagery is found in the deeper portions of the brain below the neocortex. Researchers also found significant positive correlations between visual imagery vividness and the volumes of the hippocampus and primary visual cortex. Common examples of mental images include daydreaming and the mental visualization that occurs while reading a book. Another is of the pictures summoned by athletes during training or before a competition, outlining each step they will take to accomplish their goal. When a musician hears a song, they can sometimes "see" the song notes in their head, as well as hear them with all their tonal qualities.
Perception relies on intricate nervous system functions, yet it feels effortless because most processing occurs unconsciously. Since the 19th century, experimental psychology has advanced our understanding of perception through diverse methods. Psychophysics measures how physical sensory inputs translate into subjective experience, while sensory neuroscience explores the brain's role in perception. Computational approaches analyze perception as an information-processing system. Philosophers, meanwhile, debate whether qualities like color or smell exist independently or are constructed by the mind.
The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, known as the distal stimulus or distal object. By means of light, sound, or another physical process, the object stimulates the body's sensory organs. These sensory organs transform the input energy into neural activity—a process called transduction.This raw pattern of neural activity is called the proximal stimulus. These neural signals are then transmitted to the brain and processed. The resulting mental re-creation of the distal stimulus is the percept.
A worldview (also world-view) or Weltanschauung is said to be the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. However, when two parties view the same real world phenomenon, their worldviews may differ, one including elements that the other does not. A worldview can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.
A person’s worldview—their fundamental understanding of reality, meaning, and values—profoundly shapes their emotions, beliefs, suppositions, and fantasies by acting as a lens through which they interpret experiences. For example, an optimistic worldview may foster positive emotions (e.g., hope in adversity), while a pessimistic one may amplify anxiety or resentment. Beliefs are directly filtered through this framework (e.g., seeing human nature as inherently good vs. selfish), and suppositions (unconscious assumptions) are drawn from its logic (e.g., trusting authority vs. expecting corruption). Even fantasies are constrained or empowered by worldview—someone who views the universe as mechanistic might imagine technological utopias, while a spiritually oriented person might fantasize about transcendent unity with nature.
In the human brain, the cerebral cortex consists of the larger neocortex and the smaller allocortex, respectively taking up 90% and 10%. The neocortex is made up of six layers, labelled from the outermost inwards, I to VI. The neocortex is the outermost layer of the brain’s cerebral hemispheres and is responsible for higher-order cognitive functions, including sensory perception, conscious thought, language, and decision-making. Structurally divided into six layers, it processes complex information by integrating inputs from other brain regions, such as the hippocampus (critical for memory formation) and the amygdala (involved in emotion). The neocortex plays a key role in memory by storing and retrieving declarative memories (facts and events) and enabling semantic knowledge (general world understanding). It also supports fantasy by allowing mental simulation—imagining future scenarios, creative ideas, or fictional narratives through the recombination of stored memories. Without the neocortex, abstract thinking and self-reflection would be impossible.
The thalamus is a small, dual-lobed structure deep in the brain that acts as the brain’s "relay station," filtering and directing sensory and motor signals (except smell) to the cerebral cortex. It regulates consciousness, sleep, and alertness, but it also plays a subtle yet crucial role in memory, daydreaming, and emotions. For memory, the thalamus works with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex to help consolidate and retrieve episodic memories (personal experiences). Damage to certain thalamic regions, like the mediodorsal nucleus, can cause amnesia or confabulation (fabricated memories), highlighting its role in memory accuracy.
In daydreaming, the thalamus modulates the brain’s default mode network (DMN)—a system active during mind-wandering—by controlling cortical arousal. It helps shift focus between external stimuli and internal thoughts, allowing fantasies to unfold without sensory disruption. For emotions, the thalamus connects the amygdala (fear/pleasure center) and prefrontal cortex (rational control), influencing how emotional memories are processed. For example, during trauma, the thalamus may overampflying sensory
to the amygdala, creating vivid, intrusive memories. In summary, the thalamus quietly orchestrates the balance between reality and imagination, grounding emotions and memories in sensory context while permitting the mind to wander.
The frontal lobe is the largest lobe of the brain, located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere. The frontal lobe contains most of the dopaminergic neurons in the cerebral cortex. The dopaminergic pathways are associated with reward, attention, short-term memory tasks, planning, and motivation. Dopamine tends to limit and select sensory information coming from the thalamus to the forebrain
Cognitive Functions: It is involved in thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making.
Motor Function: The frontal lobe is responsible for controlling voluntary movements.
Speech Production: It plays a key role in the production of speech.
Social Interactions: It helps in building social relationships and understanding ethics.
Overall, the frontal lobe is essential for higher cognitive functions and personality expression.
The REM phase is also known as paradoxical sleep (PS) and sometimes desynchronized sleep or dreamy sleep, because of physiological similarities to waking states including rapid, low-voltage desynchronized brain waves. REM sleep is physiologically different from the other phases of sleep, which are collectively referred to as non-REM sleep (NREM sleep, NREMS, synchronized sleep). The absence of visual and auditory stimulation (sensory deprivation) during REM sleep can cause hallucinations. REM and non-REM sleep alternate within one sleep cycle, which lasts about 90 minutes in adult humans. As sleep cycles continue, they shift towards a higher proportion of REM sleep. The transition to REM sleep brings marked physical changes, beginning with electrical bursts called "ponto-geniculo-occipital waves" (PGO waves) originating in the brain stem. REM sleep occurs 4 times in a 7-hour sleep.
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is the stage most strongly linked to vivid, narrative-like dreams due to heightened brain activity resembling wakefulness. During REM, the brain's limbic system (emotion center) and
.jpg)
.jpg)
visual cortex are highly active, while the prefrontal cortex (responsible for logic and self-awareness) is dampened—explaining dreams' emotional, bizarre, and often illogical nature. This stage also paralyzes voluntary muscles (via brainstem signals) to prevent physical acting out of dreams. Studies show that disrupting REM sleep impairs dream recall and emotional processing, suggesting its critical role in integrating memories, emotions, and creative thought through dreaming.
Research drugs that stimulate the imagination, then discuss with your team: should all these be considered illegal hallucinogens? Be sure to consider how and to what degree a hallucination varies from a simulation, a rehearsal, or other acts of the imagination. For instance, when is a daydream a hallucination?
One used by writers is called “writing with constraints”. If their options are limited—for instance, if they cannot use the letter A in a story—someone struggling to put words on a blank page might dodge that first paralyzing moment of decision-making. Artificial limitations “provide a certain level of texture against which a metaphorical match can more easily be struck,” says the writer Matthew Tomkinson. Many traditional poetic forms—especially strict ones, such as haiku—are examples of this approach. Read about others across different genres, including those of the French Oulipo movement, then learn more about the selections below. Afterward, discuss with your team: should more creators use this technique? When they do, should it be advertised to the public? Would you want to try it for your World?
From Dashiel Carrera, Matthew Vollmer, Matthew Tomkinson, Julie Carr, and Jean Marc Ah-Sen
For writers, the power of creative constraints may not stem from the limitations themselves, but rather from how they counterbalance certain unproductive tendencies. These constraints can also serve as a tool for writers to clarify the goals and requirements of a specific project. In the five works featured in this collection—covering fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction—creative constraints helped define the evolving boundaries of the writing process and illuminated a clear direction for progress.
Matthew Vollmer, Inscriptions for Headstones, (Outpost 19)
I decided to write multiple epitaphs (instead of just one) from a third person perspective and to begin each epitaph with a phrase that would signal to the reader that we were undoubtedly in epitaph territory, like “here lies X” or “R.I.P. Y” or “this stone marks the final resting place of Z,” and instead of preserving the inherently pithy quality of the form, which often seemed to relay only the most basic of information regarding the deceased—like “beloved father and husband.”
Famous painter David Hockney once said, which was that, “if you were told to make a drawing of a tulip using five lines or one using a hundred, you’d be more inventive with the five.”
Matthew Tomkinson, oems, (Guernica Editions)
Before writing anything, I first resolved to flatten the dictionary. This entailed copy-pasting the contents of the Merriam Webster into a spreadsheet, and then removing all words containing tall letters (b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, y). What remained was a curated list of flat words such as “sunrise” and “consciousness,” with which I composed the book. In essence, then, my chosen form fits the definition of a lipogram (a work that omits certain letters).
Julie Carr, Real Life: An Installation, (Omnidawn)
One day in a moment of confusion, I fund myself numbering my lines. When I got to fourteen, the number of lines in a sonnet, I stopped. I titled the poem “Into it,” for it had allowed me back “in” to the writing. I found that within the cool comfort of the 14-line limit, I could pack almost anything I wanted. Like a child in a playground, the poem felt protected, even as it went wild. “The real renews itself each year/ I’ll do whatever the radios suggest,” I wrote in lines numbered 4 and 5. After that, I wrote dozens of fourteen-line poems, each with their lines deliberately numbered.
Jean Marc Ah-Sen, Disintegration in Four Parts, (Coach House Books)
I came up with a quote that could rally potential writers together—“all purity is created by resemblance and disavowal”—and then sought out the best literary fiction practitioners I knew to interpret the cryptic dictum. We individually abided by a 10,000 word count and an ambitious four month deadline. These constraints were really on account of my unfledged status in writing. I thought I could turn this project into a “clinker-built” writing apprenticeship for myself, where my work could somehow overlap with others and participate in the rigors of a creative writing program.
One sound in Chinese could have a multiple number of meaning. This poem’s name, in Chinese characters, is 施氏食獅史. In Pinyin, that would be “Shī shì shí shī shǐ.” This text was composed by the Chinese-American linguist, scholar, and poet Yuen Ren Chao in the 1930s. Mr. Chao also significantly contributed to the modern study of Chinese grammar. The sound “shi” is the only sound in the poem. You find it 94 times (in some versions, there are only 92). Only the tones differ. That’s right! Mr. Chao wrote this poem as a linguistic demonstration. Therefore, the poem shows that writing a one-syllable text that means something is possible. That’s because Chinese is a tonal language. So, the same syllable can have a different tone and correspond to a different character. Pawwsitively fascinating.
« The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »
In a stone den was a poet called Shi Shi, who was a lion addict and had resolved to eat ten lions.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions and, using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. So he asked his servants to wipe it.
After wiping the stone den, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were, in fact, ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.
The poem "No So Fine" by Marianne Moore offers a unique comparison between inanimate objects and living creatures. It contrasts the stillness of the fountains of Versailles with the beauty of a china swan, suggesting that the artificial can surpass the natural in terms of aesthetics. This theme of artifice vs. nature is a recurring one in Moore's work, as seen in poems like "Poetry" and "The Steeple-Jack."
Moore also uses language to evoke the grandeur and opulence of the French court. The poem is filled with rich, evocative words like "chinz," "fawn-brown," and "gold," which create a sense of luxury and extravagance. This use of language is characteristic of Moore's work, which often explores themes of wealth and status.
The poem also reflects the time period in which it was written. Moore was writing during the early 20th century, a time of great social and political change. The poem's focus on artifice and luxury can be seen as a reflection of the materialism and excess of the era.
Ernest Vincent Wright (1872 – October 7, 1939) was an American writer known for his book Gadsby, a 50,000-word novel which (except for four unintentional instances) does not use the letter E. A work that deliberately avoids certain letters is known as a lipogram. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized as a result of the efforts of protagonist John Gadsby and a youth organizer.
summary of Gadsby Chapter 1: The chapter discusses the potential of youth and the importance of nurturing a child's inquisitive nature. It emphasizes that children, though often underestimated, have the capacity for deep thought and creativity. The protagonist, John Gadsby, seeks to revitalize the stagnant small town of Branton Hills, which has grown complacent and resistant to change.
Gadsby believes that to foster growth, the town needs a champion to inspire its youth. He gathers a group of enthusiastic students to form an organization aimed at improving their community. They tackle various issues, such as inadequate infrastructure and a lack of recreational areas, by rallying support from the town’s adult population, including wealthy residents.
Through determination and collaboration, they initiate projects like a park and a public library, demonstrating that with the right guidance, the energy and ideas of youth can lead to significant improvements in their environment. Gadsby's vision reflects a belief in the power of community and the necessity of engaging young minds to create a better future.
.jpg)
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is a poem by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, first published in 1951. Though the poem was dedicated to Thomas’s father, it contains a universal message. The poem encourages the dying—the sick and the elderly—to fight bravely against death. The poem also celebrates the vibrancy and energy of human life, even though life is fragile and short.
The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) was something of a prodigy. He published many of his intense, idiosyncratic poems when he was just a teenager. While his stylistic inventiveness places him among the modernists, his pantheistic feelings about nature and his passionate sincerity also mark him as a descendent of 19th-century Romantic poets like William Blake and John Keats (both of whom he read enthusiastically). He also admired his contemporaries W.B. Yeats and W.H. Auden , who, like him, often wrote of the "mystery" behind everyday life (though in very different ways).
"Do Not Go Gentle into That Night” was written sometime in the late 1940s and early 1950s—the years just after the end of World War II. For Thomas, a Welsh poet, the war would’ve been an important presence in his life: throughout the war, the Nazis bombed towns and cities across the United Kingdom. The years after the war were dedicated to rebuilding—a project that sometimes required reconstructing entire cities from the rubble. Thomas would have seen the human cost of the war firsthand, both in terms of soldiers who died in battle as well as the civilians who died in air raids.
Kimiko Hahn (born July 5, 1955) is an American poet and distinguished professor in the MFA program of Queens College, CUNY. Her works frequently deal with the reinvention of poetic forms and the intersecting of conflicting identities.
This short poem is witty by giving a secondary message through the bold text at the end of each line. The poem deals with the them of climate change and our ignorance of it, how we are unable to part with fossil fuels. It shows that everything is interconnected and that "The Whale Already Taken Got Away. The Moon Alone."
Disney’s theme park designers are infamously branded as “Imagineers”—in just one of the many ways that imagination is celebrated in popular culture. Check out the following works, then discuss with your team: what perspective do they take on imagination? Do they share any common messages?
Despite what you’ve heard, the word “imagineering” is not unique to Disney. In fact, it’s a phrase that was first used in World War II corporate propaganda.
One of Alcoa’s many ads promoting “imagineering,” a concept it embraced nearly two decades before Disney did. Some of the ads took a feel much closer to propaganda. (Internet Archive). Imagineering started as a wartime slogan for the aluminum industry to promote itself, with no Disney in sight. (left) It was printed November, 1942 by the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), in an effort to encourage the public purchase of war bonds.
