I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.
― James Dickey
What makes you a poet is a gift for language, an ability to see into the heart of things, and an ability to deal with important unconscious material. When all these things come together, you’re a poet. But there isn’t one little gimmick that makes you a poet. There isn’t any formula for it.
— Erica Jong
A poet’s work … to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it from going to sleep.
— Salman Rushdie
The second workshop I attended at Writersfest was Poetry Writing 101, facilitated by Sarah Tsiang.
Get ready to get your creative juices flowing in this welcoming introduction to writing in verse. Join award-winning poet Sarah Tsiang through a series of writing exercises designed to help you find your spark. Through explorations of imagery, language, structure and flow, you’ll play with ways to make writing that feels authentically you.
We began by playing with opposites. If we take a quote from Emily Dickenson, “My life had stood a loaded gun” and make it opposite, we might get: Your death will sit some empty – and here’s where she turned to the participants and asked for suggestions for the opposite of gun. We gave her: flower, dove, hug, marshmallow, peace, pen, suture, birth, whisper, hammer, forceps, uterus, welcome, feather, love, embrace.
We can all be trying to say the same thing, but it all comes down to distilling it down to the right words, making sure you don’t have a wasted word. Density is made through grounding writing in the senses. The specific will lead you to the universal.
For the next exercise we were divided into groups. Half of the groups were asked to provide five interesting nouns, the other half were asked to provide five interesting adjectives. Then we were asked (as individuals) to pick a random noun and adjective and use them in a sentence:
The wildflowers clung with serpentine tenacity to the fence.
The reeds were a verdant shade of green.
The windmill was a whimsical reminder of the life of Don Quixote.
Next we were given a hand-out. There were five poems on it and we were aske to write the opposite of whichever poem we picked.
The poem I picked was Maya Angelou’s:
Awaking in New York
Curtains forcing their will
against the wind,
children sleep,
exchanging dreams with
seraphim. The city
drags itself awake on
subway straps; and
I, an alarm, awake as a
rumor of war
lie stretching into dawn
unasked and unheeded.
My version, turning it into the opposite:
Falling Asleep in Old York
Openness volunteering our won’t
for the calm,
adults awake,
hoarding reality without
demons. The country
pushes you asleep under
uppers unrestrained; and
you, a calm, sleep as a
fact of peace
stands compacting out of dusk
asked and heeded.
The most important thing about poetry is ambivalence – trying to understand things on a different level.
For our next exercise we were asked to think of two important relationships in our lives. We were to describe all of the emotions and feelings associated with them. Then we were to think of an incident, image, or situation that holds two of these emotions. Next we were asked to write a short piece about one of these relationships and then turn it into a poem.
The relationship I chose to write about was with my father.
When I was twenty, my father was diagnosed with colon cancer. Back then there weren’t the advances there are today for early detection, so it was quite advanced when it was discovered. Our relationship was just getting back on track from a past rockiness, but when he needed to go to Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto for treatment, my new husband and I took the day off work to take him up there. Perhaps I was very naïve, but I did not fear losing him at that time. But as we left him in the waiting room, I looked back and saw him sitting there looking alone and afraid. I will always regret not going back and sitting with him.
Love and Regret
The sun should not be shining today
It is too happy for a day of saying goodbye
There’s a hole in my heart where you once were
No matter how many disagreements we had
Underneath it all was the ever present love
Now you are gone, ripped away from me
No more arguing, no more recriminations
I left you sitting in that waiting room
Looking lost and scared, hands clasped in your lap
I was selfish, and left you alone
And now I stand watching as they lower your coffin
Filled with regret for not turning back to sit with you
And telling you one last time, I love you.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
WORDAGE REPORT
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . frustration.
Apparently I’m stuck in a traffic jam on that road of good intentions that leads to you-know-where.
You’d think, what with getting our Thanksgiving dinner out of the way on Sunday that I’d have the rest of the week to do all that stuff I said I was going to do in last week’s blog post, but it didn’t quite work out that way.
I spent the better part of Monday re-arranging the kitchen cupboards to make room for the stuff we kept on top of the fridge, then cleaned out the fridge freezer in preparation for the new fridge that was being delivered on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning I had a stitchery meeting, which worked out okay because the fridge was being delivered in the early afternoon and our meetings only go until noon. We were supposed to start a woven fabric basket at the meeting, which did not go as planned. Then I get home and they delivered our fridge early, with no warning. They were supposed to call ahead!
We got the old fridge cleared out as quickly as we could, no finesse about it, and the delivery guys took it away. Hubby had to cut away at part of the alcove that was built around it because the plug from the new fridge was in a different spot than the one in the old one and the plug wouldn’t reach the outlet otherwise.
New fridge gets plugged in, and pushed back – fits perfectly. Delivery guys leave. I go to start filling it and discover a new problem. My beautiful new fridge has French doors, and the left side won’t open because it’s right up against the wall. *sigh*
More farcical angst trying to get a hold of the furniture place, and then we have to go over and pick out a new new fridge and arrange for them to pick up the old new one. Fortunately they were able to give us a loaner.
My week did not improve after that, but at least I got all my blog posts up.
NEW WORDS:
2847+615+295+986=4,753
UP: 54 – words
Pretty consistent, wasn’t I? And while I may not have got any extra writing in, at least I didn’t have to burn the midnight oil getting my blog posts done.
One more installment and Winter’s Child is done. It would have been better if I could have dragged it out until November, then I could just post excerpts from my WIP for my Fiction Fridays, but there really isn’t any more story to tell.
I might give serializing stories a rest for a while, maybe until the new year. I was thinking about getting back into some timed writing using a one word prompt every day, and then picking the best exercise piece and turning it into a flash story for Fridays, we’ll have to wait and see how I feel after NaNo.
Meanwhile, for the last Friday in October I’ll probably post an excerpt from my first NaNo. I might post one from my second one on the first Friday in November, just because I won’t be very far along yet with my new NaNo
Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the blogs; find an idea for NaNoWriMo
EDITING:
1.5 Hours
Yeah, not a lot, but it’s better than nothing, right? I may have been a little distracted last week. Aside from all the crap going on, the holiday kind of threw me off. Plus, as I knew would happen eventually, the weather turned on me. I enjoy the cool evenings, but the dark is getting really dark, especially when it’s overcast.
Goal For Next Week:
Try and get into a routine with the editing.
POETRY:
I had the blog post part of a more complicated form done, but the example was tripping me up. I was running out of time so I switched to a far less complicated form and actually, I kind of liked it.
I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise that I did not make any progress printing out poems for indexing. One of these days . . . I swear!
Goal For Next Week:
Find a new form to share; work on the extra forms. Print poems to update big book o’ poems.
CRAFTING:
One of the ladies in my stitchery group volunteered to show us how to make a woven, fabric basket. There were only a handful of us who took her up on the offer. Well, we were sent the instructions and apparently I only skimmed over them or something, because I came with uncut material and the others had theirs cut into strips and some even had them pressed. *sigh*
So, by the end of the meeting, while others had their first row of strips ready to be sewn on the base of the baskets, I had the five long strips pressed, stuffed, and sewn, and fourteen others that are pressed. So I have stitchery homework, due in two weeks time.
But believe it or not, I did get some work done on my stitchery kit. I pulled it out on Wednesday night and worked on it during Masked Singer. :-D
Goal For Next Week:
Work on my zentangle; work on the kit I started; do my stitchery homework.
WHAT I’M READING:
I’m gonna be honest here. I was only a little way into Never, Never, by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher and I read several unfavorable reviews about it and paused, not knowing if I wanted to keep going. I liked what I read so far, so I finally sucked it up and kept going. I’m glad I did, because I really enjoyed it.
I kept going on the box set on the Kindle and read High Noon, by S.E. Biblow. I liked this one much better than the last one – it was a fun little mystery. Next up on the Kindle is Mystic Pieces, by Ada Bell.
Goal For Next Week:
Find a new tree book to read; continue with the box set on the Kindle.
THE WEEK AHEAD:
That new leaf isn’t exactly thriving, but neither is it dying. I’d say it’s more like it’s in a dormant stage. Hopefully the week ahead will see it starting to grow again.
This week will be a little busier than last week, but at least it’s expected busyness, not like the fiasco with the fridge. And I also had an unexpected coffee date on Friday, and while taking a walk along the waterfront was nice, it turned into three hours, which was a little long for coffee.
Tuesday I’ll be joining the stitchery guild for a one day, all day, retreat at a local spa. This is the first time we’ve held a retreat and a surprising number signed up. We get to stitch all day at a local spa, and in the afternoon we’ll be treated to high tea.
One more installment for Winter’s Child, and it’s done. It’s always a little sad when a story ends, and I think I’m going to take a break from serials for a while.
I really need to come up with an idea for NaNoWriMo. Time to break out the old idea file – the paper files that is. I keep remembering that An Elemental Wind started out as a rejected idea. How many other ideas might I have that could work for NaNo? Time to find out.
Even if I’m able to come up with an office routine that includes editing, I’ve only got a couple of weeks until NaNo, and I’m wondering if I’ll be able to stick to it. On the other hand, who knows how much I’ll be able to accomplish in that two and a half weeks, so I should at least give it a try, right?
Ideally, I’d also like to have a couple of poetry posts done before NaNo, just to take some of the pressure off, but that means picking out some more forms. I may have to resort to forms I’ve already done. In any case, I’d like to do at least two forms this week – one for the blog and one for reserve.
I may need to go back to knitting or crocheting if I’m going to do crafts at night. The lighting really sucks in this house, and you need good light to stitch. So I think if I’m going to do any stitching it’ll have to be during the day. But that’s okay. I wouldn’t mind knitting myself a sweater or two, and there’s this afghan I’d like to do for a present . . . Of course that’ll be a moot point if I can’t get the writing taken care of during the day. And again, whatever routine I come up with is probably not going to last more than two weeks.
I did a moderate amount of reading last week and now I need to pick a new tree book. I don’t know what I’m in the mood to read next – maybe I’ll just close my eyes and point to my to-be-read bookcase.
I’m thinking the best way to overcome this non-productive mood I’ve been in lately is to keep busy. Just get up and do things without thinking about them. I need to go back to my lists too, to give my day some structure.
It’s worth a try.
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