How Quickly We Go from Waxing to Waning, from Flourishing to Fading

Today I go for a walk again, but unlike last week, I won't have the company of the moon, at least not the grandeur of the moon that we had last week.    We had clear skies, which we don't always have, and I had my cell phone, so I could attempt pictures.  

I don't have the best phone, so I can't take the best pictures, as was evident, when I took pictures of the moon when it was a few days past full (and the full moon pictures aren't that great either--not sure how to get rid of the reflection underneath the moon):

This line came to me:  "How quickly we go from waxing to waning."  I thought about the trees, which are beginning to look a bit bedraggled, even as they are preparing themselves for their autumnal regalia, and this bit came to me:  from flourishing to fading.  I liked the way the whole line went together:  How quickly we go from waxing to waning, from flourishing to fading. If I could come up with a 2 syllable word that also starts with an f and means flourishing, that would be better, I know, but I haven't yet.

I snapped some additional pictures to go with it, and I was happy with how the snowball bushes came through, even in the pre-dawn light.

I've been trying to make that line into a poem.  It came to me on the morning after the Democratic Convention, but I'm in no mood to write a political poem.  It seems much better as a poem about a woman at the far edge of midlife (the edge that is closer to old age), and yet, I don't really feel like exploring that either, at least not yet.  It could be your basic nature poem, but the world has so many of those, and I'm not sure I can contribute a new angle--although that writing prompt appeals to me:  write a nature poem that says something about the passing of the seasons and the phase of the moon, but in a brand new way.

So I've written it down, and we'll see if more lines come forth to join it.  Maybe it's time to return to my abandoned lines document and see if that approach jiggles something loose out of my brain.

Sailing from Byzantium: Process Notes

Once I had writing habits, some that worked better than others.  This past year has given me one disruption after another:  job loss which might have opened up extra time, had I not broken my wrist, coupled with a huge move mid-summer and a smaller move at the end of the summer and a heavier class load than in the past.

Next term, I will try to set up some writing habits that will result in more writing time.  What will that look like?  I don't know yet.  Let me think about it before 2023 gets away from me.  For now, I'm trying to keep my poetry legal pad close to me, and to go ahead and start writing, even if I only have a glimmer of an idea.

Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast about the end of Byzantium.  I thought about the Yeats poem, and as I read it, a line came to me:  This is no country for young women.  I decided to write it down and to keep going.  I decided to have something inspired from the Yeats poem in each stanza.

In stanza 2, I began "Paltry things, tattered coats, and favorite sweaters."  Yeats started his stanza this way:    An aged man is but a paltry thing, / A tattered coat upon a stick, unless."  The third stanza references music and what the heart knows, in both Yeats' poem and mine.  The last stanza of Yeats references the gold and glitter of Byzantium; my stanza references both jewelry and canning.  Both poems end with this line:  "what is past, or passing, or to come."

I'm recording this process because it inspired me in ways I didn't expect, and it seems like something that could be used in a variety of settings.  

I will continue to work with the poem--one of my habits that has developed in the past few years is that I write a draft and don't return.  I'd like to actually finish a poem, type it into the computer, and send it off to see if anyone would like to publish it.  But more than publication, I want to have the joy of having crafted a rough draft into a more finished draft.  These days, I often end a writing session without a complete rough draft.  I write a few lines or stanzas and drift away, thinking I'll return when I'm more inspired, and I don't return, not yet.

Here's hoping that 2023 will give me more opportunities to return to drafts--and to write them in the first place.  And hope is not a strategy, so let me start making some plans.

Morning Writing Process

--Wake up at 3 a.m. and try to remember when I fell asleep--9 p.m.  I've gotten 6 hours of sleep, but I try to get a bit more.

--At 3:20, I decide that I may as well get up.  I start a pot of coffee and power up the computer.

--I open my apocalyptic novel document.  I read back over it and try to remember what I thought I would write next.

--Sip coffee and scroll through Facebook while listening to some of yesterday's news wrap up NPR shows that often air on Fridays.  Get an idea for this morning's apocalyptic novel writing.  Wonder if it's the best idea.

--I decide to leap right in.  As I'm writing, I think about a scene that I included in a short story that would be perfect for this part of my new novel.  I go to my fiction file and try to remember what I named that story.  Wonder if the fact that several of the titles could go with the story is a problem.

--Find the story and transplant the chunk from that story into the novel.  Change the names.  Listen to thunder rumbling and wonder if we'll get rain.   Refill coffee mug.

--Look at weekly goal list and realize that I have yet to write 2 poems.  I write the title of one I have been writing in my head:  Climate Change Word Problem.  How was I going to start that poem?  I know how I will end it:  solve for x.

--Go back to novel and write a few more sentences.  One of the lines of the Climate Change Word Problem poem floats through my brain.  I switch documents and write the line.  Then I write another line.  Then I remember the rest, and I write those lines.

--My stomach rumbles.  When did we eat dinner?  What time is it now?  I had planned to make an apple crisp with apples that need to be used.  When should I start?

--I do a bit of Internet rambling while I try to think about the next part of the novel.  I decide to make the apple crisp.

--Notice that the vase of pink carnations has grown some interesting mold in whisps around the stems.  Think about taking a series of photos. Sternly tell myself to stay focused on the writing once the apple crisp goes into the oven.

--Sprinkle spices on top of the apple.  Inhale the scents of autumn.  Brew another pot of coffee.

--Drink coffee while listening to an NPR program on climate change and military readiness.  Watch the light bouncing around the storm clouds.  No rain yet.  Hope that it is raining in the west, where my butterfly plants could use a gentle soaking.

--Go back to the novel.  Write a bit about September 11.  Look up some information about the times that each plane hit.  Comforting to have my memory of that day's timeline confirmed.

--Think about the nature of memory.  That day so seared into my brain--and yet it fades a bit.

--Realize that the smell of apples baking in autumnal spices has filled the house.  Go to check on the crisp.

--Doesn't the oven light turn on when I open the oven door?  Not this morning it doesn't.  Has the oven always been this way?

--The crisp is ready.  I take it out to cool.

--Time to get back to the novel.  I write a few more sentences.  Why is this difficult?  Is it time to leave the past and get back to the present story of the novel?  The present is the past too--or maybe the novel will unwind differently than I first pictured it.  I return to the first day of the travel ban in the novel. 

--Decide to eat some apple crisp before it cools too much.  Do some Internet bopping around while eating.

--Look up to the sound of rain hitting the window.

--Time to get back to the novel.

Faithful Writing Practices

Today was my last day of the week to meet my goal of writing 3 poems this week.  I needed to write 2.  I had an idea for one, but not the other.

I went back to what has served me well:  take a story that's established, and take a minor character.  See what happens.  Fairy tales and mythology have often been fruitful.  But again, I had no ideas.

I thought about another avenue that's been fruitful.  Fast forward with a character.  For example, years ago I wrote a poem about Nancy Drew who returns to teaching in her later years.  You can read about it here.

This morning, for some reason, I thought about Goldilocks and the 3 bears.  I thought about the baby bear.  What happens when he grows up?  Does he always feel that what he loves will be stolen from him?  Does he have 3 locks on the door?  Does he feel a gaping hole of need that he can never fill?

I had a delightful time imagining baby bear.  And the poem has potential.

I also want to record another type of success.  I was talking to a friend who's been a colleague for over a decade, at more than one school.  We talked about the middle of the night, where our brains wake us up with worries about all that needs to be done.

She told me about her approach of keeping a pad of paper by the bed.  She wakes up, writes a bit, and drifts right back to sleep.  We talked about the value of hand writing vs. typing.  She said, "Of course.  You taught us that in the faculty development session you had years ago."  I wrote about that session in this blog post.

What a gift to hear that something I planned was not only useful at the time, but continues to be useful.  I plan faculty development sessions in part because we need to have something free and easy to attend, and in part because I am interested.  But I rarely know for sure that they're useful to others in their regular lives.

And now, my regular life dictates that I get ready for church.

Monthly Goals

I have been having luck with having one monthly goal.  In September, my monthly goal was to walk 10,000 steps every day.  I did that.  In October, I participated in a spin class challenge--each spin class, our goal was mileage--I rode hard to get my mileage up and was successful in each class.  I had planned for November to be the month where I ate 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

I have already failed.  Each and every day I have failed.  But I have been writing a poem every day.  I hadn't planned to do so.  But this morning, after finishing my Penelope and arthritis poem, I realized that I was at day 6 of daily poetry writing.

Let me see if I can keep this up.  April is the traditional time to write a poem a day, and I've done that once and failed to do that several times.  November is traditionally a time where people are trying to write a novel in one huge swoop of a month.  I will sit in my corner, quietly writing a poem.

I'm also participating in an online course.  I've taken a workshop with the teacher before--she's the one at a past Create in Me retreat that turned me on to sketching with Copic markers.  We're using Joyce Rupp's Open the Door, which has a meditation for each day.  Once a week, we'll meet by way of an online Zoom meeting.  We're all part of a private Facebook group where we can post thoughts and images.

This week's readings have explored the doors of the heart.  On Sunday, I made this sketch, which is blurry, no matter how I tried to photograph it differently:

After our weekly Zoom session, I wrote a haiku and made a new sketch:

This morning, I made this Facebook post to the group:

As I woke up periodically throughout the night, I had this recurring thought: my heart is a homeless shelter. I will spend the day puzzling over this image. If my heart is a homeless shelter, who/what are the residents? Ideas that aren't welcome in the larger world? Ideas that have yet to take root in me? I don't have an image yet . . . maybe it will come later.

I am already finding November to be a month of inspiration--my goal is for that feeling to continue!

Lessons and Inspirations from a Month of Groups

From early March to early April, I spent a lot of time in groups:  workshops, presentations, and all sorts of sessions.  Let me record a few times when I said, "What a great technique!  Let me remember this":

--At the AWP, I went to a session where it became clear that more of the audience had questions than the panel would be able to get to.  So close to the end, the moderator had each person state their question and then each of the panel presenters gave one closing remark.  I was surprised by how the questions all got answered.

This technique might be a good one even if time wasn't running out.  I noticed that it got rid of the tendency to bloviate.  We've all heard the person who stands up to ask a question, only they don't really want to ask a question, but to go on and on about their own opinions.  Having everyone state a succinct question got rid of that phenomena.

--At the Create in Me retreat, we had a group session along with times for small group discussion or silence for contemplation.  To call us back, our leader sang the simple song that he taught us at the beginning of each session. He sang it softly at first, to signal that we were at the end of time.  As each group/person came back to the group, the singing increased.  This technique allowed conversation/contemplation to come to an end without the crashing halt that can come with other ways.

--At the Create in Me retreat, we had a small worship service each morning.  There was a Bible reading, some liturgy, and some songs.  Each day, the liturgy remained the same.  I liked the repetition.  I thought about how often I've spent significant time creating a new experience for each day of a gathering.  But repetition has rewards too.

As I looked back through the notes I took during this month of meetings, I came across a writing prompt that seems perfect for our halfway point in National Poetry Month.  It comes from Amy Fryckholm during the AWP session, The Ganesh in the Room:

Open the Bible at random, and then do the same with another piece of literature, Shakespeare or Whitman.  See what emerges.

Poetry Thursday: "When God Switched Fabrics"

It has been awhile since I posted an illustrated poem--this one (without my images) was published at the wonderfully cool, online journal Escape Into Life.  Since it's an online journal, they can do neat things with images, and my poems are paired with wonderful fabric art.  Go here to see the feature.

Long ago, at a Create in Me retreat, we talked about God the creator and the various Genesis stories and what they mean for our own creative processes.  And this poem emerged shortly thereafter.


When God Switched Fabrics


On the third day, God switched
fabrics. At first, God had followed
respectfully the lessons of the elders:
which fabrics could be used,
which fabrics couldn’t go together,
which decorative objects were suitable.
God stuck to the established patterns:
Flying Geese, Star of Bethlehem, and Log Cabin.

But on the third day, God declared,
“Enough.” God created the universe
with leftover scraps of velvet,
silk, leather, and denim. God stitched
it all tightly together with ribbon and lace.

When God created foliage,
God decided to design new patterns.
Even the elders exclaimed over God’s
grand visions.

When God began the creation of the animals,
God discovered the dimensions offered
by fabric dyes. God played with pigments
and new patterns appeared.

By the time God created humans,
God claimed the title of fabric artist.
God didn’t waste time
in the age-old debate of craft versus art.
God blazed new trails mixing fabric,
paint, clay, and metals to create
new forms yet again.

Justice Poem Prompts

A few weeks ago, I wrote a series of prompts for the Create in Me retreat planners to use.  My vision:  that people would fill in blanks and come up with interesting ways to think about justice.

I thought I'd post the exercise here, too, in case it would be more widely useful.

Justice Poem Prompts

 

 

Fill in the blanks, make new blanks, and see what happens.

 

 

What does justice look like?

 

 

--The elders say, “Our children need ___________________________.”

 

--The prophet calls upon the legislator and says, “Do  _________________________.”

 

--The flocks say, “Give us ___________________________________.”

 

--The angel Gabriel gives us these instructions:  “_____________________________.”

 

 

A different approach; fill in these blanks and then in the next section, fill in those blanks:

 

Detail of shift from one season to another ________________________________

 

Type of noise ________________________________________

 

Element of nature  _____________________________________________

 

Type of emotion _________________________________________________

 

Favorite flower __________________________________________________

 

Something very tiny  ________________________________________________

 

Floor or wall covering  ______________________________________________

 

Something nourishing ________________________________________________

 

Favorite fruit __________________________________________________________

 

Element of self-care  ______________________________________________

 

Something that oozes _____________________________________________

 

Favorite treat  ________________________________________________________

 

Something that turns _______________________________________________

 

Something that grinds   ___________________________________________________

 

Now let’s move to the next section and see what happens:

 

--A commitment to justice helps us offer __________________________________.

 

--We yearn for the day when justice covers the earth like ______________________________.

 

--We are crushed into bits smaller than _____________________ by injustice.

 

--Truth rolls down through the valley like ________________________________________.

 

--When I work for justice, it’s as if ________________________________________________.

 

--I first felt the move to justice as __________________________________ ripening.

 

--Evildoers cover their rotten foundations with _____________________________.

 

--We burn with __________________________________for truth and justice.

 

--Injustice grinds us like a giant ____________________________________________.

 

--The____________________________ of justice turns slowly, but the turning does occur.

 

--The ___________________________of justice has found fertile soil in my heart.

 

--_________________________grows in the garden of justice.

 

 

One last question which may prompt poems:

 

Is the pomegranate of justice different than the pineapple of justice?

 

 

Monks and Valentine's Day

Yesterday's post linked to poems (mine and others) for Valentine's Day.  Today, a different sort of writing for Valentine's Day.

In yesterday's post, I wrote about the theology in the poem, "Is it my theology?  No.  I didn't intend it as theology--I save that writing for other outlets."  And today, you can see an example of that theology.  My post about monks and marriage is up at the Living Lutheran site.

The post admits the salacious sound of the idea:  “'All I need to know about marriage I learned from a monk!' It’s a bad movie, just waiting to be made. But in all seriousness, the monks have much to teach us about deep commitment. It’s a similar commitment to love that we see from our creator."

The post goes on to consider people in committed relationships and how that commitment is similar to the vow of stability (commitment to place) that monks make. 

I could make similar argument for the commitment that many creative people make to their art.  We need to keep creating, and if we're lucky, we're part of a larger community that keeps us anchored in our commitment.  We are more likely to stay in our committed relationships if we have more support in wider networks.

So, as we hurtle towards Valentine's Day, let us recommit to our art.  Let's send cards, flowers, and chocolate to our muses.  Let's remember the larger communities that keep us anchored in our creative practices and send our gratitude.

Poetry Thursday: Poems for Valentine's Day

I have many conflicted feelings when it comes to Valentine's Day.  I remember making mailboxes for Valentines out of shoeboxes.  I remember classroom parties in elementary school with candy and cupcakes and people delivering mass-produced cards.  I remember counting them afterwards and comparing the count to everyone else's count.

I am not proud to admit this, but I also remember feeling unloved when my count was lower.  I didn't focus on the 15 cards I did get, but on the 25 cards that my prettier best friend got.  It's a lesson I continue to learn again and again, that I would be happier if I didn't compare myself to others.

When I look at those long-ago class pictures, I can no longer pick out the pretty girls, the handsome boys.  They all look like kids to me, regular kids, each and every one. 

I have happier memories of making Valentines, both as a child and an adult.  A few years ago, my spouse and I made homemade Valentines for our nephew.  My sister reported that he was thrilled.

A few years ago, a group of us at work met to compare poems and art.  And now, one of those poems is up at Escape into Life:  go here to read it.  You'll need to scroll down to get to my poem.

It's part of a great feature, poems and art for Valentine's Day.  Last week's installment was wonderful too.

When I think about the writing process of that poem, I don't think about words.  I remember it as the time when our Pam Reagan, our visual artist friend, showed us a mask.  When she said mask, I thought Mardi Gras and two dimensions.  She told us that she had broken glass Christmas ornaments, but I thought she had laid them flat.

I was not prepared for this:

When I read the poem, I see the elements of the piece in the poem, particularly in these images:

"You envisioned the Mardi Gras mask"

"the glittered borders"

But I no longer remember how I came to use the idea of a rosary, of deconstructing sacred relics to repair a heart.  It feels somewhat sacrilegious to me, yet I know that it's sound theology of a sort. 

Is it my theology?  No.  I didn't intend it as theology--I save that writing for other outlets.  But I do love the imagery, and I don't feel that I've used it in a profane way.  It may not be sacred, but it's not intended as a desecration.

The poem does what I want for all my poems:  it makes me look at a subject differently.  In this case, it takes images that have a powerful potential for cliché and banality that comes from overuse and makes me think about them differently.

Directed Writing Insight: Focus on the Memoir!

A week ago, I'd have been in the North Carolina mountains to help plan the Create in Me retreat.  We met from late afternoon of September 9 to lunch on September 11.  It's amazing what we get done with an intense focus--it's a good lesson to remember in all areas of my creative life.  I do tend to get a lot done in little chunks, but I should probably make arrangements for a few more times of intense work throughout the year.

I was in charge of devotion time in the morning, and since I didn't know I was in charge until I got there, we did it differently:  no Bible expert giving insight.  No, the first day we did a guided writing assignment and the next day we did a lectio divina experiment.

For more on the exact process of the guided writing, see this post on my theology blog.  We did a variation of a writing assignment that I've often done with my students.  I have my students write to themselves in the voice of their 80 year old selves.  For the group last Monday, we wrote in the voice of our spiritual mentors.  First we thought about places where we needed to be rekindled, either individually or as groups, and then we did a free writing.

Free writing couldn't be more simple.  All you do is write.  You keep writing.  You don't stop, you don't go back, you don't edit:  you simply write what bubbles up.  If nothing bubbles up, you write "I have nothing more to say" over and over again until you have something more to say.

Those of you reading my blog know where I need to be rekindled.  You may have insight that I don't have.  I've been very focused on my job and the future.  Even now, when I've gotten a position in the new, reorganized institution, I'm still seeing it as a temporary reprieve.  The state of higher education overall is shaky.  Many call it the next bubble that's about to pop (like the tech bubble, the housing bubble, all our bubbles).  So it's wise to continue thinking about what comes next.

When I started writing last Monday morning, I thought I might get wisdom about going to seminary.  I had stayed up extra hours on Sunday night talking about seminary.  I thought my free writing might lead to insights about where to move.  After all, moving is my default response to knowing that something needs to change:  pack up and change locations, either locally or across the states.

We wrote about what needed rekindling, and then we started free writing with this prompt:  "What would your mentors say to you about rekindling?"

Here's what I wrote a week ago:  "You've got any number of paths you could follow.  God will make you useful wherever you are.  You can likely do what you want to do without uprooting everything.  Write that memoir.  You want to reach people--that memoir is how you will do it.  People have said that your writing style is like Kathleen Norris'--follow that path.  I cannot stress enough how much people need your words, how urgent it is that you attend to this memoir."

For those of you saying, "Memoir?  What memoir?", go to this post which will explain what I plan to do.  Basically, last spring I realized how few of the memoirs I've read talk about work life in conjunction with spiritual life. I've read plenty of self-help books that claim to do so, although none of them have been useful to me in the ways that I wished they would be when I picked them up.  And then there's the issue of being an artist and being at midlife.  My plan is to write a memoir that weaves all these strands together.  I will organize it by the calendar year.  I'll strive to make it a collection of essays that can be read each one on its own, but of course, my hope will be that the whole collection will be more meaningful when read all at once, that it will be so compelling that people won't be able to put it down.

When I started my free writing, I hadn't been thinking about memoir at all.  As I say, I'd been thinking about going back to school or finding a dream job.  But memoir writing?  I would have said that memoir writing had been far from my conscious thoughts.

I've always found these free writing exercises to yield interesting insights.  Last Monday was no exception.

I return renewed.  I will finish sorting through possibly useful blog posts in the next month.  I will go to Mepkin Abbey with a sheaf of pages, and I will begin the process of taking all the rough work and turning it into something cohesive and meaningful.

 

Transforming Youth into Poets

Last night, at a planning meeting for a new kind of worship service we're launching at church.  We want a more interactive experience, something that gets the children and youth more involved.  For more on this initiative, today's post at my theology blog will give you more insight.

As we talked last night, we talked about the experimental/family service that our pastor designed for Easter Sunday.  The "children's sermon" fascinated me, and it seemed to have larger applications.  I particularly loved how it might start young people down the symbol/metaphor road.

Our "children's sermon" time is traditional in that it has part of the church population come forward.  It's non-traditional in that parents often come up, as do adolescents of all ages.

For Easter, our pastor had a basket of everyday objects.  Each child participant chose an object and went back to the pew to discuss what this object could teach us about God and about the Easter message.  Then 10 minutes later, the participants came forward to report.

For those of you who are having trouble picturing this, here's an example:  one child took a roll of tape back to the pew.  What does tape have to do with God or Easter?  Easter is the event that sticks us to God.  That's one possibility.

It seems to me that this exercise would have secular applications too, a great way of teaching metaphor and figurative language.  And it would work with everyday objects that you have around the house/school/office.

Here are some prompts:

--what does this hammer have to teach us about vacation?  (any object could take the place of a hammer, and of course, you could fill in that vacation side of the metaphor with anything you like:  love, family, social justice, addictive behavior . . .)

--what does this object have to teach us about history?  about modern life?

--if this object was a religious object, describe the religious rituals that could spring up around it.

--choose 2 objects and come up with some connections.  Once you've written down the obvious, go deeper.

--if you wanted to go down a different road, an object could lead to reports of all kinds, to research papers, to oral history projects.

Stealing Credit--with Writing Prompts for Free!

The first time we ever had a credit card stolen, back in the mid-1990's, I was astonished at what the thief bought:  stuff at T. J. Maxx, stuff at Home Depot, stuff at a few other discount stores.  I thought, if you're going to steal my credit card, go ahead and shop at high-end stores.  Why T. J. Maxx and not Saks?

Yesterday as I looked over the credit card statement, I noticed a charge at Best Buy, where we almost never shop because it's so noisy.  The charge was for $50 even, which I thought was odd.  It was made last Tuesday, and my spouse and I were positive that we'd purchased nothing from Best Buy last week.  So, I called the toll free # for the merchant.

The woman said, "Oh, yes, you bought a digital download for your X-Box."

I said, "I don't have an X-Box." 

"You don't?  Could you have bought something from your X-Box?"

"I don't have an X-Box."

You can imagine the rest of the conversation:  questions about my e-mail (the person who made the purchase was using an e-mail that's not mine), and then the information about police reports and the like.

So, I spent an hour or two wondering whether or not to cancel the credit card.  After all, it had been one week, and there had only been one strange charge.

I hate cancelling the card, because I have some of my bill payments and charitable donations set up to charge to that card automatically.  Cancelling the card results in hours of phone calls and updating. 

But with the next phone call, I knew we had to cancel the card.  My spouse took the call and asked me, "Did you charge a donation of $1500 to the March of Dimes?"

He was joking.  I would like to eradicate birth defects as much as the next person, but I can't afford to make a donation that large.

Oddly, I feel less outraged about someone using my stolen information to make a charitable donation than to buy a video game.  I feel more outraged about a video game than someone using my stolen credit card to go to Home Depot, where I imagine someone finally able to afford the materials to fix their plumbing.

Actually, I don't feel outrage at all.  By the end of yesterday, I simply felt exhausted.

So, here's what I really want to know.  Did the person who bought the video game also donate to the March of Dimes?  And why the March of Dimes, and not, say, Oxfam or Habitat for Humanity?

As I have said before, some things must remain a mystery.  And yet, if I was teaching a fiction writing class, I'd form this into a creative writing prompt.  And if I was teaching a Composition class, I'd give them a writing prompt something like this:  "You have a stolen credit card and one week to use it without any penalties.  But you cannot buy anything for yourself, your friends, your family, or anyone you know.  What do you do?"  Or maybe I'd ask this:  "You have unlimited funds, which you must donate to a worthy charity--only one.  Which charity do you choose and why?"  I'd have my students start by writing an opinion piece, and then I'd have them turn that piece into a research paper where they would research the charity of their choice.

Halloween Poetry Readings

In the best tradition of my undergraduate journalism training, let me put the most important information first.  If you're in South Florida, please come to my reading tonight at the Sol Children's Theatre in Boca Raton (3333 Federal Highway, which is also Highway 1).  I'll be sharing the stage with 2 other poets, and we'll start at 7:30.  This reading will be the first time I'll be reading extensively from my new chapbook.  We'll be selling and signing books afterwards.

Since we're close to Halloween, we've chosen some poems with Halloween themes, and we'll do a round robin kind of reading at the end.  I have in mind that we'll each read a poem that has something to do with enchantment, then we'll each do a poem that deals with witches, then we'll each read a poem that has to do with wolves or other monsters.  Of course, my fellow poets may have a different idea.  For my 8-10 minutes of poetry reading before the round robin, I'm going to focus on the tricks and treats of the modern workplace.

I told one of my colleagues that our reading will be particularly kid friendly, especially since it's at a children's theatre space.  Of course, it would be neat if every poetry reading was kid friendly.  We need to grow the next generation of poetry lovers.

Jeannine Hall Gailey wrote a great post about that topic here.  She talks about going to the Seattle Symphony when they had a sci-fi event, and she wonders if poets shouldn't be planning readings in a similar way.

Long ago, we received "Be a Tourist in Your Home Town" tickets for a Christmas present.  We spent a chilly January exploring Charleston, South Carolina.  We went to a Sunday afternoon Symphony concert that was billed as family friendly.  The conductor talked to the children in the audience to explain what the orchestra was about to do and what to listen for.  I'm sure I wasn't the only adult in the venue who left feeling enriched beyond measure.

I like the idea of holiday themed readings, although I realize the danger of hokiness.  My fellow poets with whom I've been reading this year are Hindu and Jewish.  I'm still hoping to pull together a reading where we read poems about our special holidays.  Where are the intersections?  What do the differences tell us?

In a similar vein, go here to read a great teaching idea from Donna Vorreyer.  She got the idea when she read Dave Bonta's poem about ghosts here.  I had a wonderful experience this morning as several strands came together and wove themselves into a poem.

Last week, I attended the Employee Engagement Committee.  We're the group that plans events in the hopes of keeping up morale.  In a twist that's either very cruel or full of black humor (and irony?), most of the committee has just been informed that they will be losing their jobs in the November RIF.

So, last week, there we were, trying to plan the Halloween events, and laughing to keep from crying.  We talked about costumes, and I suggested that the HR people come dressed as the ghosts that will haunt us as we sit waiting for a response from the 1-800 HR number.

This morning, I started thinking about all the other Halloween metaphors that fit a RIF work environment so perfectly.  Here's a stanza:

We agree that we can't afford pumpkins
in this era of downsizing.
Too many programs gutted--
why mangle these poor gourds?

I think I'll read the poem tonight.  We start at 7:30--it would be great to see you there, but since I know that many of my readers live far away, I'll take pictures and write up a retrospective this week-end.  Maybe I'll even experiment with recording, although I haven't had much luck yet.

When You're Stymied and/or When You're Planning Your Composition Classes

I know from reading blogs that lots of folks are starting to think about heading back to their classes.  My school is on a very different quarter system, set up so that we always end Fall quarter before Christmas, so we're in week 3 of our Summer quarter.  Still, I remember the end of July, August around the corner, the realization that soon Fall Semester would come crashing on our heads.  I always taught through the summer, but summer sessions always had such a different feel.

I was always on the lookout for good ideas for Composition classes, so on that note, I'll offer some.  These will also be useful for writers of Creative Non-Fiction and/or Memoir.  If you're feeling stymied by summer's heat, maybe these prompts will help.

One of my most successful innovations in the Composition classroom was to spend time talking about the ways that students thought life was different when their parents or grandparents were young.  I did this with a class of traditional 18 year olds, just a few weeks before Thanksgiving.  I had them write about how they thought life was different, and then I had them create a list of interview questions about life in the olden days. 

Their assignment when they were home for Thanksgiving was to interview a relative or someone at least 20 years older than they were.  They had to ask interview questions of their own and some that were on the list that others wanted to know.  You had a wide range of choices, from food to jobs to sexual practices.

They came back bubbling over with what they'd found.  In most cases, the conversations were very valuable.  Students had recorded all sorts of family memories.  And they discussed them with each other.  They were amazed at how different life was from what they thought it had been like, from what TV and movies told them it had been like.

They wrote the best comparison/contrast essays about what they'd learned that I had ever seen.  They wrote the best essays of the quarter.  They honed their interview skills.  They learned how to talk to family members.

Here are some other ideas (you can be you, the writer, or you, the student):

--Imagine a future researcher is writing an article about you. What will be the most remarkable incidents in your life? Write about one of them that’s already happened. Then write about it from a different angle.  For example, I have a friend whose father died and then less than a year later her mother died a rather gruesome death from cancer, and all by the time she was 27 or so. When she can bear to do it, that framework will make a remarkable story. Plus, she could approach it in so many ways for so many audiences: heartwarming story from a daughter’s view, dark humor, medical horror story, an article that tells what families should be doing now to get ready for these times.  For those of us teaching Composition or other types of writing classes, this exercise might be a good one in imagining different audiences and different approaches to the same story.

--Research a particular item or a color or a symbol. For example, choose an animal and find out everything you can about it, including how it’s functioned in mythology, and how humans have used it, and how we see it now. Can you turn your research into an essay of some sort? Maybe just a collage of what you’ve discovered.

--Interview someone. Some day, your older family members will be dead. What will you wish you had asked them? Can you conduct an interview in writing? Is there anyone else you can interview about them?

Another fun possibility: in this day and age, it can be fairly easy to find people (writers, artists, musicians, politicians, etc.) who have inspired you. Reach out to them. See if they’ll do an interview with you.

Don’t neglect the charm of interviewing the normal people whom you meet on a daily basis. Ask a key question every day. What’s a key question? Well, what interests you most? I’d ask people about their view of God, or what they most hope will have happened in 50 years or when they were seven years old, what they most wanted to be when they grew up. You, of course, have a different set of interests.

Creativity Groups and Do It Yourself Retreats

Over at her blog, Kelli writes about her do-it-yourself writers' retreat that she had with her local creative friends and she offers great ideas--you, too, could have a writer's retreat with your friends this very week-end. No need to wait until you get accepted into an MFA program. No need to win that coveted spot in a nationally known retreat center.

I've often had writers' groups as part of my life, but as I read Kelli's post, I realized with a bit of shock that we haven't actually written together. Even during retreats where we wrote, we usually retired to our separate rooms to write. The majority of writers' groups of which I've been a part have been the workshop kind, where we arrive with our work written and looking for feedback or praise.

I found this exercise that Kelli describes intriguing:

"We also did 2 exercises where we would write and someone would say a word from a list of words we had created from books of poems. J & I each chose 5 words each from our chosen book of poems and R & A chose 5 words each from their chosen book of poems.

We put these words in a bowl then started with a phrase, our was something like "...years above the dizzying bridge..." from a Madeline DeFrees poem. We would freewrite then every 30-90 seconds, one person would draw a word from the bowl and we'd have to incorporate it into our poem. This makes you add things into your work that you might not add and stretches your brain. It's very hard to write the cliche poem if you're writing about flying and someone gives you the word "marsupial." It takes your poem to surprising places. (This is our group's favorite exercise at the moment.)"

I like the idea that they use books of poems. I like the idea of surprising additions.

I wonder if I could use this idea with my students. I've now moved most of my volumes of poetry to my office. If I used this idea, it would give my students a reason to touch the books and go through them. They are often so shocked to realize that poems exist in a book-length volume. I was too. For so many years, poems were what you read in anthologies.

Speaking of anthologies, one of the highlights of my yesterday was the chance to read my friend's short story that has just been published in an anthology of Asian American female writers (I hope I have that right). It was a beautiful story. I suspected it would be, but I've only read my friend's poetry. Her poetry takes my breath away, so I wasn't surprised to find that she's very skillful with narrative too.

I'm happy to have these kind of friends, ones with whom we can share our publishing victories. But reading Kelli's post made me realize how few creative communities I have now, groups that actually create together. I miss my old writing groups--well, the ones that worked I miss. The dysfunctional ones can go away. I miss my friends who gamely experimented with the creativity circles that I pulled together as I read Julia Cameron's The Vein of Gold. I miss the quilting group that I had a few years ago, the one that met fairly faithfully once a month.

Let me think some more about this. Let me send out my wishes to the universe and see what echoes back.

Maybe Poetry Postcards Will Be Just the Thing for August

I've been having some trouble getting myself to sit down and write out the poems that are in my head. I write down a phrase or a line so that I'll remember later, but I don't write out a poem. I don't know if the project described over at the NewPages blog will help with those poems, but it sounds like a fun, jump-start, get through the August doldrums kind of adventure.

In this post, Denise explains how it works:

"Get yourself at least 31 postcards. These can be found at book stores, thrift shops, online, drug stores, antique shops, museums, gift shops. (You'll be amazed at how quickly you become a postcard addict.)

On or about July 27th, write an original poem right on a postcard and mail it to the person on the list below your name. (If you are at the very bottom, send a card to the name at the top.) And please WRITE LEGIBLY!

Starting on August 1st, ideally in response to a card YOU receive, keep writing a poem a day on a postcard and mailing it to successive folks on the list until you've sent out 31 postcards. Of course you can keep going and send as many as you like but we ask you to commit to at least 31 (a month's worth). "

Denise's post has more details and links.

Exercise with Lines and Stanzas

The other night, I was working with my Poetry Workshop class on line breaks and stanzas. I always bring in poems of my own, written in paragraph form, and have them rewrite them with line breaks and later, with stanzas. On Thursday, one of my poems referenced Ash Wednesday, and since I like to explain how I come up with ideas, I had to explain Ash Wednesday. That led to some interesting information about pets at Ash Wednesday services and pet baptisms (I wrote about that concept in more detail at my other blog--go here if you'd like to read more).

Then, after we've had fun with my poems, it's time for students to do the same thing with their own work (or if it's a beginning class, I let them continue the experiment with the work of others). With so many people about to leave town for the AWP convention (some day, some day, I'll be there) and cold and flu season upon us, I thought I'd post the exercise instructions here, in case others would find it useful. It would be easy to cut and paste, and voila! Instand handout!

So, here's a handy exercise, for days when you need your students to be busy, without much input from you. I think it might even be useful (perhaps with some modifications) for Composition classrooms--you could have an interesting discussion about which words deserve emphasis and how poetry composition gives one different options than prose. And in Literature classrooms, I've always claimed that one learns as much from trying to write a type of literature than trying to write a piece that analyzes a piece of literature.


Creative Writing Exercise: Lines and Stanzas


This assignment will consist of 4 parts. It will probably be easier if you do it on the computer, so that you can play with lines and stanzas, without having to do much retyping. You may use a piece that you’ve already written before, or you may write something specifically for this exercise. You may also use someone else’s poem; just tell me who wrote it. You will be working with the same chunk of words for parts 1, 2, and 3. You probably need a minimum of 150-200 words to have enough flexibility to do this assignment. Don’t try this with haiku!

Please clearly label each part that you’re turning in.

Part 1: Write out the words in paragraph form.

Part 2: You will not break the words into stanzas. But you will break the paragraph into lines.

Part 3: You can keep the lines the same, or you can experiment with different lines. In addition, you will experiment with stanzas. You must break your experiment into 3 stanzas—or more.

Part 4: Write a brief analytical essay (at least 500 words, or 2 pages) that explains the choices that you made, and how well you thought they worked. For example, in part 2, how did you decide how each line should end? And in part 3, how did you decide which chunks belonged together in each stanza? And most importantly, as you look at each part, which one do you think works best as a poem? Explain.

Creating Characters

On her blog, Leslie Pietrzyk has a great writing exercise for developing characters. She offers it as an exercise that she uses with her fiction class, but I plan to use it when I talk about narrative poetry in my class, Creative Writing: Poetry Workshop, this quarter (starts tonight!). I'll be interested to see if it gives us interesting poems, and I'll report back (don't look for a report soon--we don't get to this part of the syllabus until 6 weeks or so).

Leslie writes: "Here’s another great character exercise that I may have mentioned before but that’s always worth resurrecting. Again, I swiped this idea from a student, who told me that she was in a class with Michael Cunningham (author of The Hours) who had everyone come up with a list of THIRTY phrases/words to physically describe their characters. I’ve tried this, and while the first ten or so aren’t that difficult (5’6”, brown eyes, etc.), to get to thirty, you really have to come up with some new, interesting stuff. Of course, this is the stuff you keep for the work, not the boring brown eyes."

I've pasted from her blog, but you can go here for the whole post. Or go here, if you're in need of words of wisdom.