Ways to Use Your Drama Training

At the poetry reading the other day, I thought once again about how many ways I use the training that I first got in drama class:  how to project my voice, how to take on a persona, how to vary my voice, how to pace myself.  It's also interesting how some of that training no longer matters.  We spent a lot of time as youthful aspiring theatre people projecting our voice to the back of the theatre; now, opera singers are the only ones who don't use tiny microphones.

Long ago, I was a drama major. I’ve had many occasions to think about how what I learned as a drama major has come in handy later, even though I didn’t continue with my original plan to take Broadway by storm. I’ve written about the ways that being a drama geek prepared me for both teaching life and my creative life (most notably here).


It’s interesting to me to reflect on how the training has come in handy, even in smaller ways. I went to a lecture on emotional eating recently. The psychologists leading the session talked about other ways to calm ourselves, including focusing on our breathing. One of the psychologists noted that my hand went to my stomach, as I practiced the deep breathing that I first learned to do during drama lessons, then as a distance runner, and later in yoga classes.

Several of the women in the emotional eating session with me couldn’t get the hang of belly breathing. “I can’t get my stomach to go out when I breathe in,” one of them said. But it’s a process that comes naturally to me.

I’ve been thinking about ways we might need to reinvent ourselves, whether it be by the ways we comfort ourselves or the ways we earn money. I heard this story on NPR which included a segment about an unemployed computer networker who started a singing telegram business. He’s got twelve characters (think Elvis), and he shows up with balloons and a card and a song.

I thought, well, there’s a way to use your drama and voice lessons.

When I was younger, I thought of all the ways that training might translate into money. Now I’m more intrigued by all the ways that training of all sorts can help us in ways that we can’t have anticipated when we started. Does this recycling and renovating of training come more naturally to creative types? Or do we just need to get desperate enough to give our training new applications? As with so many of the either-or questions that I pose, the answer probably is yes and no to both. There’s a whole spectrum there, not just one set of choices.

Poetry Reading at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale

I was lucky to be part of a great poetry reading yesterday at the Books and Books location in the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale.  I've read with the two other poets before, and once again, I was happy to reflect on how well we fit together.

When we first got there, we had some debate about how to set up.  We decided to have the chairs face a landing, where we would read.  I read first.



The pictures make the art hanging on the wall much more vivid than they seemed in real life, when I was part of the audience watching my fellow poets.  Most of the pictures that we took showed the humans in dim light, overshadowed by the art.  I like these photos, but I'm not sure they adequately capture the scene.  Ah well.

I read a mix of poems from my first chapbook and from the forthcoming chapbook.  I read well--no stumbling, and I tried to remember to read more slowly than I usually do.  The audience was receptive.

Here are the three of us answering questions at the end and below, the bookstore manager who was kind enough to arrange everything.  The audience asked insightful questions.  They were such a great audience:  attentive, appreciative, insightful--and willing to come to us despite torrential rains in some parts of the county.

We read to an audience of 50--wow!  About 15 of them came from our school, about 10 were connected to the other two poets as family/friends.  Who were the others?  Whoever they were, they were wonderful.

We've got another poetry reading on October 20 at a children's theatre--hopefully we can do something with a Halloween theme.  I have a vision for a holiday reading, where maybe we'd sell books for people looking for interesting gifts.  Plus, it could be a neat reading:  I'm a Lutheran, one poet is Hindu, and the other is Jewish.  If we read holiday themed poetry, how interestingly multicultured that could be.  I'll start working on that.

I may have a recording of the poetry reading coming soon--one of our friends recorded us.  In the meantime, here's a poem from my forthcoming chapbook that I read.  And if you want a copy of that forthcoming chapbook, let me know; they should be here soon.


Penelope Plans a Play Date


Before motherhood, she had a more inspired brain.
It contemplated fractals and the tiny quark.
But thinking of those days just brings her pain.
Her intellect has gone dim and dark.

Now she maps out schedules of each play date.
She associates with mothers dull and mean.
She tries to accept it as her fate
to talk about ways to keep house and laundry clean.

She once saw her Ph.D. as a shield
to keep her safe from hearth and home.
Eventually she had to yield.
Her baby gave her life a different tone.

But when she thinks of returning to her career,
She reads to her child, determined to find happiness right here.

Planning a Poetry Reading on the Day After the World Ends

So, while a group of us celebrated a friend's completion of her Ed.D. degree, and then I slept peacefully through the night, the S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating. I read the news this morning, and I thought, well, we've heard these rumblings with their apocalyptic overtones for several weeks now. And one of the worst case scenarios has happened.

I almost expected to see smoking ruins when I looked out the window this morning. But the world looks fairly normal.

I realize, of course, that when various markets across the world open beginning some time Sunday night, we might find out that we really are hurtling into the abyss.  Or maybe nothing will happen.  These days, it's hard to tell.

In the meantime, life goes on.  For those of you who are saying, "Hey, you, give us some comfort," I'd direct you to this post on my theology blog.  It contains my thoughts, some links to other great blog posts of comfort, and a poem that reminds us that times that seem like we'll remember them as the darkest may actually be high points in our life.

Or go to this post of Jeannine's to focus on the good writing news of various poets that deserve celebrating.  Hurrah for Karen J. Weyant (and her great book title, Wearing Heels in the Rust Belt, winner of the Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest); hurrah for Rachel Dacus who has just signed with Kitsune Books.

Or come out this afternoon to a poetry reading at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale at 4:00 p.m.  Sure, we might have the remnants of Tropical Storm Emily passing us then, but what's a little rain?  You can drink wine or excellent coffee drinks.  You can enjoy the works of 3 poets who are so similar and so different.

I'm one of those poets, and I'm still in the final planning stages of deciding what to read.  As with last time, I think I'll read a few poems from my first chapbook and a few from my second.  I only have about 12-15 minutes, so I won't be reading too many poems.

Last time I made my reading decisions based on which poems I thought were best, a time-honored way of deciding what to read.  But as much as I love some of those poems for their approach to language, their symbolism, their word play, the subject matter can be difficult.  I'm thinking of "Scout at Midlife," which returns to the world of To Kill a Mockingbird, where we discover that Atticus, he of the magnificent legal mind and moral compass, has Alzheimer's.  I could see from the faces at the reading that the poem was indeed effective--but very painful to hear.  More and more, I am surrounded by people who are watching their loved ones struggle with this disease.  As does my very own beloved grandma--her lucidity comes and goes, and I know there are times when she has no idea who I am. 

It's very strange.  For years, I thought my grandma didn't know who I was because she didn't understand me or my generation.  But she knew more than I was willing to give her credit for knowing.  And I was young, with that arrogance that comes from being 19 years old.  And now I'm older, and it's so very unsettling to be with her when she literally does not know who I am.  I can see how my poem would be hard for people who are living with that situation more closely than I am; I only see my grandmother a few times a year, if that.  As my job circumstances tighten, it's been less, as it's harder to get away.  Now is not a good time to look dispensable in the workplace.

In a week of dreadful news, in a summer of grinding disagreement, I've decided to choose my poems that are most hopeful and most humorous.  I'm not choosing lesser poems, not by any means.  But I'm keeping the subject matter upbeat.

We're surrounded by doom and gloom.  I can't watch the news at all anymore, and even National Public Radio is proving too much for me on some days.  At work, I'm surrounded by people who are convinced we're on the road to hell. At work, I'm surrounded by people who are convinced that we're already there. Very few optimistic people in my workplace these days.  And I think my workplace is a microcosm of the larger world.


And here I thought I would need to change careers to be a hospice chaplain!

Yet I can't quite shake the thought that maybe some of us are taking a bit too much delight in our gloomy moods.  I can't quite shake the feeling that we're wallowing in our pessimism.

No, I am part of several traditions that remind me of my moral duty to be a person of hope and resurrection.  You can dismiss me as a goofy Christian if you like, but I would also argue that as poets and writers, we have a duty and a calling to envision a different world, a better world.  As people who have more than other people, we have a duty to remind the world of what the world could be.  I would say that one of the great contributions that the U.S. has made to the world is the idea of a nation where we can achieve whatever we want to achieve if we just put our minds to it.

Hush.  Do not tell me that those days when anything was possible, that those days are behind us.  They are not.  Out of times of great turmoil, a better world often emerges.  The world needs change agents now more than ever.  Can poets and poems be those change agents?  Can change begin in the cradle of one poetry reading?  Am I being preposterously grandiose?

Of Stars and Ghosts and Other Otherworldly Things

I woke up this morning, rather amazed that it's August already.  Have I sent poetry packets to all the places where I hoped to submit this summer?  No I have not.

Once upon a time I chafed when summer came, and so many journals shut down.  I hated losing momentum.

Once upon a time, I would have had packets ready to go for the September submissions.

Well, those days are not these days.

Today, I am tired of thinking about practical matters, like whether or not the economy is imploding or what my next career should be or where to submit.  Today, I am inspired by the otherworldly postings of others.

I love the photos and the poems at this posting at Escape into Life.  Kathleen Kirk always creates such fascinating pairings, and this time is no exception.  I particularly love the first photo, the one which looks like a boy has captured stars with his face (even though I suspect it's glitter).

Speaking of stars, I love the astronomy information in this post.  Sherry O'Keefe talks about how stars lose their twinkle.  Naked stars without a twinkle.  I'll probably think about this all day.

Over at Dave Bonta's blog, there's a fascinating exchange about ghosts, and much of that exchange is in poem form.  Make sure to read the comment section.

So, I decided to try my hand.  I think what I have here are seeds for 3 separate poems, but I'm going to post this, even though it feels profoundly unfinished with no title.

Our ghosts surround
us.  They stitch shrouds
of lost dreams upon our skin,
a lacy spiderweb of stretch marks.

A sturdy scar tissue of scratches
surrounds the legs of every chair.
We know the ghosts of long dead
cats must visit us.
How else to explain new marks?

And some mornings, I am sure I sense
you, returned to visit all your cookware.
Your bread bowl longs for the feathery
scent of yeast, and your cast iron skillet
wonders when it will cook a pork chop
again.  The canning jars sit empty;
doleful glares surround me every day.

When Your Book Is Late, and Other Thursday Musings

--For those of you who are saying, "It's August; where is Kristin's book?":  there's been a delay at the printer's.  Hopefully, it will be on its way to you in 2 or 3 weeks.

--I had hoped to have new books for this Saturday's reading (4 p.m. at the Books and Books location at the Museum of Art Ft. Lauderdale--I'm reading with Shefali Choksi and Marissa Cohen).  Oh well.  This one is out of my control.  We also have a reading at the Sol Children's Theatre on Oct. 20, so maybe by then, I can reward our faithful public with a new book to buy.

--For those of us thinking about print vs. electronic publication, here's an area where we might favor electronic books.  Of course, I'm sure publishing electronically comes with its own share of delays and headaches.  Does electronic publishing come with the same sort of events-outside-of-our-control feeling?  For me, probably.  I haven't done computer programming since the olden days of BASIC, so I imagine the electronic publishing process might feel just as mystical.  I might feel uncoordinated and helpless.

--I've been feeling uncoordinated in real life (as opposed to electronic life) too.  I'm in the last few weeks of the weight loss challenge program at my little gym, and I'm trying all sorts of new classes.  I've been doing weight lifting too, and between the weight lifting and the new classes, I'm feeling muscles that I've never felt, like the ones on my side.

--Yesterday, I tried cardio kickboxing for the first time, which for the most part, made me feel very uncoordinated.  But for part of the class, we did a shuffle step in a circle while doing boxing moves with our arms.  I almost felt like I was levitating.  It took me back to elementary school, where we altered our consciousnesses in similar ways.  I don't think I've twirled in a circle for a very long time.  It felt good.

--It's hard for me to hold my body in plank shape.  I was not born to be a plank.

--At least my body isn't allergic to many things.  Sandra Beasley will be on the Diane Rehm show today.  You can listen to it later if you miss the 11:00 a.m. airing.  Have you read Don't Kill the Birthday Girl yet?  It's next on my pile of books to read.

--Right now I'm reading Albert Brooks 2030:  The Real Story of What Happens to America.  It's been interesting reading this book during the run-up to the debt ceiling vote.  You'd think my inner apocalypse gal would like this book.  I'm still deciding.  I'm having trouble keeping the characters straight--I'm not sure they're real relevant to the plot, so it may not matter.

--Does it matter that the characters aren't relevant to the plot?

--Am I having trouble with this book because I don't have long enough stretches of reading time to immerse myself or is there something wrong with the book?  Is it the book or is it me?

--I'm also having trouble reading/listening/researching/focusing on all this political debt ceiling and deficit reduction talk.  Once I would have been enraged, but now I'm simply weary.  And I'm also tired of all the rage expressed by others.  This anger doesn't serve us well at this point.  We can't afford it.

--Where are the visionaries who could inspire us to dream of a better world?  Are they out there, and I'm just not seeing them? 

--Should we aspire to being the visionaries?  Could poets emerge to save us all? 

--It's the birthday of Shelley, the one who wrote "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."  Can an unacknowledged legislator make a difference?

--What kinds of differences would you most like to see in the world?  Dream big.  Shelley dreamed big, and was mocked and persecuted for it.  But what a thrilling life he had.

--And yes, lots of human wreckage in his wake, not all of it his fault.

--But let's not let the human wreckage angle topple our appreciation of Shelley, who tried to live life on his own terms, who was warm and generous and tried to end poverty and tried to support his poet friends.  Yes, he really did have a fierce sense of social justice, and he really tried to live a life in synch with his ideals.  He succeeded magnificently on some levels and failed miserably on others.  But he tried.

--May we all be similarly blessed.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl--Very Young

My parents are moving in a few weeks.  They've lived in their house since 1984, and I would have thought there would be no more of my stuff left in their house.  Through the years, we've sorted through my stuff several times, so imagine my surprise when two boxes showed up yesterday.

Some of the stuff in the box is stuff that wasn't ever mine, like old pictures.  I feel kind of weird about having these, but I'm telling myself that my parents probably have other copies somewhere.  Maybe they gave me the baby pictures of me that weren't their favorites. 

But probably not.  They're moving to what will likely be their last house, unless they need assisted living or the nursing home.  They're doing the final sorting.  I appreciate it, on the one hand, because it means that my sister and I won't have as much to sort later.  But on the other hand, it makes me feel weird.

One of the boxes had file folders of my first writings in it.  I was really surprised to see this box.  I thought I had my earliest writings.  But there's a picture book I made, called Happiness Is . . .  And I drew pictures to illustrate what I thought happiness was.  And yes, it's likely inspired by a book series that came out in the 1970's, the Love Is books (which are still in print!--or back in print, more likely).

My "book" was made on the back of notecards.   They look like class notes, but they're not in my parents' handwriting.  Hmm.

I love the files that I made.  There's one called "articles and short stories."  Yes, even then I was thinking in terms of genres.  One file folder is labeled "Seasonal Plays," and contains just what you would think.  There's a file folder of old Berkey Bulletins.

When I was young, I loved putting together newsletters.  The Berkey Bulletin had crossword puzzles that I made up, recipes, articles.  I did this when I was 11 or so.  I wrote to family members to ask for contributions and subscriptions.

It's no wonder I became a college journalist and later a blogger.  They're all very similar writing disciplines.  I remember writing for my college newspaper about the death of Simone de Beauvoir and reviewing records and covering campus events.  Likewise, when I blog, I might offer a poem one day, a recipe the next, and reviews here and there.

As I looked through my old papers, I was reminded of the early, elemental joy that kept me writing.  It's the same joy that wakes me up early (what would be the middle of the night to most people) and drives me to my desk.  If I can get some writing in before work and then some exercise, then in many ways, I've done the most important work--and often, before the sun rises!

Beat Those August Doldrums: Prompts for Fiction and Poetry

Last week, I wrote this post about what to do if you're in need of Composition ideas or if you're a stymied creative nonfiction/memoir writer.  I wrote this post earlier with more general suggestions, but Composition teachers could find ideas here too.

Here are some ideas for stuck poets and fiction writers.  And again, many of these prompts could lead to interesting Composition assignments.  You could always have them attempt the prompt, then write the classic Process/How To composition or a reaction to having to write in response to a prompt.  It seems like a  much safer approach than having students write about any emotion they want to write about.

And don't forget that one of the classic ways to refill our writing wells is by reading and by going to readings.  If you're in the South Florida area, join me and two of my poet friends at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale at 4 p.m. this Saturday, August 6.  We'll be reading from our new work; I still have hopes that my new chapbook might arrive in time, but since there's been a delay at the printers, it may not.  Ah, well, one of the first lessons they teach you in drama class:  the show must go on!

Fiction:

--Are you feeling stymied because the thought of coming up with characters/plot/theme are just too overwhelming? Go to the work of others, work where a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done. Write a sequel or a prequel. Choose one of the characters and make that character the focus of a new story. Write about the landscape in the story, landscape inhabited by a new set of characters.

So, here’s an example. Let’s take Cinderella’s house. Tell the story of the previous owners—how did Cinderella’s dad come to have it. Or tell the story of the people who inherit the house several generations later. Is it a training house for women who want to leave their careers as housecleaners? An orphanage? Or tell the story of Cinderella’s wedding gown in later years. Does her daughter wear it and dream of a prince to call her own? Did Cinderella turn it into a quilt?

You'll find more ideas along these lines here.

--Revise one of your old short stories. Take out 1000 words. Or add 2000. If nothing else, this exercise teaches you the value of each word and forces you to analyze it. But you may find it sparks new ideas too.

--Take a minor character from one of your old short stories and make that character the focus of a new story. Do this enough times and you might find you have linked short stories.

--Take a main character from one of your old short stories and write a story about that character twenty years later—or 50 years later. Or x amount of time earlier. Again, do this exercise enough times and you might find you have a collection of linked stories.

Poetry

--The suggestions offered first in the fiction section can also lead to great poems.

--A variety of poetry prompts can be found at these blog posts:

http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2010/04/30-prompts-for-national-poetry-month.html

http://ofkells.blogspot.com/2011/03/napowrimo-30-new-writing-prompts-for.html

http://ofkells.blogspot.com/2010/03/napowrimo-30-new-poetry-prompts-for.html

http://ofkells.blogspot.com/2008/04/30-writing-prompts-for-national-poetry.html