I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.
― James Dickey
Writing poetry is a passion, ignited by thoughts, fueled by ink. A way to travel through another mind, where souvenirs of tears are tucked away inside your soul. Or leave you with smiles for miles, depending on which route you go.
― Renee Dixon
...when a good poet is confronted with difficult facts that he knows to be true but also are inimical to poetry, he has no choice but to flee to the margins; it was...this very retreat that allowed him to hear the hidden music that is the source of all art.
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow
The final workshop I attended at Writersfest, was Editing Your Own Poetry, presented by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek. There was actually a workshop that came after it, but I kind of skipped that one.
Despite the name of this workshop, it never occurred to me to bring a poem with me to edit. My bad! But even if I had, because I work so heavily with forms and the form would have been ruined if I’d followed her suggestions. To be fair, the course description said to “bring your inspired ideas, your phrases, single words, manifestos, dreams and together we will sculpt out a space from which you can learn to edit your own poem.” It did not say to bring a finished poem.
Mostly what we were given was a series of questions about our poems:
Why this form?
In what other forms can this poem appear?
Try changing it to a haiku, limerick, lyric, sonnet – what happens?
What is your poem about?
What else could it be about?
One word – what is your poem about?
Why does this poem need/want to be in the world? What does it do? The space between these two questions is where you edit.
What surprises you about this poem?
Where might the surprise be hiding?
Where’s the volta (the turn of thought or dramatic shift)?
What do you like about this poem?
What does this teach you about your own style?
In what tradition do you write?
How do you mark yours in that tradition?
And unfortunately, that was pretty much it for the notes I took. I did, however, come away with a poem:
Observations From the Fifth Floor
White horses chase
small shard of ice –
the flag snaps to attention –
solid water separates in the harbour
the breath of the current
inhaling the sheets of ice together
and exhaling them apart.
I watch it all safely
from behind the glass.
And thus ends my reports on the Kingston Writersfest Retreat. I was only disappointed in two of the classes, which is not bad, percentage wise. I learned a lot, and more importantly I learned different things than I did at the last one. And I made a few friends along the way.
I took way too much stuff with me, but then you never really know what to take, do you? The weather was cold and rainy, so I stuck pretty much to the hotel and I learned the benefit of staying in the same hotel as where the event was being held. I believe the next one is being held at the Holiday Inn, and you can be sure I’ll be making my hotel reservation in time to stay there.
And yes, I will definitely be going to the next one, which I believe is being held at the end of September. It’s good to get together with other creative people. The workshops offer a wealth of information. And not having to cook or clean for several days isn’t bad either. ;-)
So now, all that’s left is waiting patiently for the tickets to go on sale for the next one.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
WORDAGE REPORT
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Last week was . . . interesting. I actually feel like I’m making progress. There was a nice blend of stitchery, reading, and writing, and my best day was Wednesday, my day off.
I was still feeling rather blah, and I was tired of struggling, so I decided to take Wednesday off. I did not go to the gym, and I did not do anything I felt I had to do or needed to do, I just did whatever I felt like doing. And because I gave myself permission to do so, I felt absolutely no guilt.
It was great – I highly recommend it. It’s not something you want to do too often, mind you, or it loses its impact, but every once in awhile I think it’s good for your mental health. You should try it some time!
So what did I do? I did my morning pages, because it’s becoming a habit. I read – not in one big block of time, but at several points between doing other things. I tried a meditation free-writing, like they had us doing to start each session in the retreat I went to a couple of years ago and came away with an interesting beginning to . . . something.
I had a couple of unintentional naps with the kitties and during one of them I was kind of pinned in place, unable to move enough to reach my lap top or even a book. I didn’t really feel like napping myself so I gave my imagination free reign. Next thing you know, I’m trying to ease myself over enough to grab a notebook (without disturbing the cat) so I could write down a two-page summation of a new story idea. So my do-nothing day was probably the best day of the week.
I had to invest in a new lap desk. Dinsdale likes to curl up under it when I’m reclined in my chair with it across my lap. I guess he was feeling a little feisty one day, so he rolled over onto his back and started attacking the padding. Next thing I know he’s pulled it away from the desk part and started ripping into the padding itself. *sigh*
My new lap desk is wider, and it has two folding legs (like one of those trays you can get for breakfast in bed). But it does not have padding, and I only have to use the legs if I want to, which raises the whole thing up higher. I’m sure I’ll get used to it in time.
NEW WORDS:
2779+599+334+737=4,449
UP 957 – words from last week
Up quite a bit from last week, aren’t I? And that doesn’t even include my morning pages, which I’ve been doing faithfully, the two-page idea summation, nor the results of my creative meditation.
I think I need to practice getting back into the rhythm of using the Neo for distraction-free writing. I did start my installment of the Pond on it, but I didn’t get very far and ended up uploading it to the lap top to finish.
The father-in-law came across something rather interesting that he passed on to me. It’s an ancient word processor. I haven’t checked to see if it works yet, but it has a slot for a floppy disk and it comes with its own printer – pretty sure it’s a dot matrix. Even if it works, I’m not sure how much use it’ll be, but I’m sure I’ll have fun checking it out.
Goals For Next Week:
Get all my blog posts done and maybe a few extra words besides.
EDITING:
0 hours
Here’s the thing.
Okay, There’s not really a thing, it’s just me not doing it..
I think Elemental Spirit is like exercising first thing in the morning. I need to stop thinking about it and just do it. The real stickler is the prophecy. If I can just get that worked out then the rest should fall into place. But every time I try, my imagination seems to come up against a brick wall.
And yes, I did put it on my list.
Goal For Next Week:
Figure out the prophecy; get editing Elemental Spirit.
POETRY:
Last week I tackled another Irish form, and lo and behold it didn’t kill me. LOL I guess I just have to be in the right mind set to work on the Irish forms, sometimes they seem harder than others.
I had ideas for a couple of other poems, but I haven’t really done anything with them yet. This is part of my problem – a line or two gets stuck in my head, so I write it down to un-stick it, and then I promptly forget about it until I’m leafing through my writing journal looking for something else and stumble across it again.
Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share. Expand on the other poems I started.
CRAFTING:
The work is going steadily on my zentangle sampler. I’m just about finished the first square. Now, when we did zentangle with pens, we started out with a box inside a slightly larger box. I stitched the outline of the outer box with my first square, but then I just basted where I wanted the inner box to be.
Now I’m thinking I should have defined the outline better. As in, I should have drawn the second box in and then stitched it was well, perhaps with a different outline stitch. I can still stitch the inner box, of course, but it’s not going to look nearly as good.
And I have good news! I was over at the father-in-law’s yesterday, helping him clean out the room where my baker’s rack is, and the baker’s rack itself. It’s all ready to go, we just have to wait for the guy with the truck and several strong men to help him carry it. That sucker is heavy!
As well as the word processor and a car load of donations, I came away with my mother-in-law’s sewing box, one of those big wooden ones that unfolds into three levels. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it, or just repair it and clean it up and then donate it.
I also ended up with a big box of art supplies – paints, brushes, books. There was a wooden paint box that just needs to be cleaned up a bit. I’ll have to go through it all to determine what can be saved and what should just be chucked.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on my sampler; sort through the art supplies I brought home.
WHAT I’M READING:
I finished The Book of Magic, by Alice Hoffman, the final book in the Practical Magic series. And I’ve started reading The Little Flower Shop, by Lori Foster.
I started riding the bike again, so I dug out my Kindle. To my surprise it still had a charge, so I also read A Little Harmless Sex by Melissa Schroeder last week. And . . . when I added it to my Goodreads list I discovered I already read it – 10 years ago.
This is the one thing I don’t like about my Paperwhite – my old Kindle let me organize my books or delete them right on the device. This new one, I can’t even figure out how to update my library, let alone organize it. And the books all stay in some kind of cloud, they’re not stored on my device.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep reading.
THE WEEK AHEAD:
My lists kind of petered out towards the end of the week, so I need to make a concentrated effort to keep them up. They really do work, which is why the first half of my week was more productive than the second half.
I still want to keep up my morning pages, even though they’re still reading like an extended, whinier journal. Maybe it has something to do with writing them first thing in the morning before my brain is awake. It’s too bad I couldn’t write them while I’m still in bed and maybe try and record my dreams, not that I’m remembering them much.
This week is going to be busier – three medical appointments, plus a poetry gathering – but I think with the help of my lists I can stay on top of things. I’m set to finish the Pond this week, the final installment should be a bit of a surprise. I can’t believe no one figured out what Izolda’s spell (after Dmitri died) was all about.
The track still getting closer, one of these days . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment