"Word Play / Word Power" - The Series You Didn't Know You Need

I love this photo, which seems to me both internal and external.
This was from a class I taught with the O'Keeffe Museum.
We spent the day exploring Georgia O'Keeffe's glorious Abiquiu,
hiking and writing to various prompts I offered the group.
After lunch, students relaxed and wrote more in the lush garden of the restaurant.

In the last post, we were talking about "Word Play" classes. They are intimate groups, authentic talk, and definitely unexpected exercises. I volunteer every last bit of information about process and expression that I think students want, and leave lots of space for writing, questions, thought-provoking discussions and laughter.


We laugh a lot.


One of the students said of the last series: “Thank you for a great time!  It’s good therapy for me and I feel somehow more than I was before.”


Would I be bragging if I said everyone feels good leaving class? I hope not. I think it's true.


I miss the classes when they aren't happening. They are the weirdest mash-up of poetry, memoir, story-telling, humor, imagination and surprise. There are no grades. Doesn't matter to me if you spell well, or put your periods and commas in the right place. That's not what this is about.


It's about finding beginnings. It's about finding your voice.


"Word Play / Word Power" Writing Series
Where: Southwest Literary Center, Santa Fe, NM
Monday evenings --  April 4th through May 2nd (5 weeks), 7-9 PM

The Antithesis of Good Writing

Rock star Mick Jagger's screaming mouth

This is a harsh, quick world. Everything is NOW...


... but I wish people would write salutations when they email me. 


And I wish each person would sign his or her name (or, at least, initials), maybe adding some little nicety like "yours" or "sincerely." It just seems entirely more humane to address the person you're writing to, rather than pushing their faces right in to the meat of your message, and then exiting without a backward glance. 


As long as I'm complaining, let me say that when you type in all caps, I think you're screaming. Please don't scream at me in your emails. I can more easily assimilate straight, reliable 12-point Verdana. 


And don't write to me in fat fuzzy pink letters. Yuck. I feel like I've been splooged with vomit. 

As readers and writers, is it possible to keep the poetry in everything we do, every word we write, to let those words be full and expressive? I'm not suggesting revising emails ... just taking a moment for kindness, gentility and clarity. 

I could cry over the emails that come sans punctuation.. or with words that fit better in a text message, but okay. Those aren't rude, just sloppy. 


As a poet, I think about the language I'm using and the language you use to address me. I want desperately for it to be lifted up from that place of indifference, that place where no one calls anyone by name. I am not invisible ... RU?

What Poetry Is - Part 2

Slapstick actor from the silent film era: Charlie Chaplin

The two books I mentioned reading in yesterday's post are Stephen Dobyns' Winter Journey and Laura Mullen's Dark Archive. Such different styles these two writers have!

Dobyns takes the reader on a stream-of-consciousness trip. The poems run 4-5 pages in a block with line breaks, but no stanzas. The words are clear and fully understandable. At times, it even feels that maybe this isn't poetry, just someone thinking out loud. He begins the poem in one place (walking the dog, for example), then moves to Germany, then touches on slapstick, then the U.S. administration (Bush, I believe), then returns back to the dog.

In a way, it's like being on a long leash, going out with the tide, wherever the tide goes, and finally (4 pages later) returning to your owner.

Next post - considering the other book
Previous post - beginning to consider what poetry is

Apology to Other Poets

To all the poets I know who are trying so diligently to get your voice and words out there,

to the poets who have planned a beautiful reading,

to the poets who have readings that overlap on Fridays and Sundays and Thursdays (which happens often because I live in a place rich with words),

to the poets I don’t know whose book tours bring you to town,

to the poets whose readings happen when I am working at my day job, or teaching a night class,

to the poets whose events fall on my anniversary or the night of the year’s best jazz concert,

forgive me, please. Poetry matters so much to me that sometimes I have to make a decision to sit and write, to re-fill my own well with those precious moments of free time I can find. Sometimes, when I say no to your event, I need desperately instead to sit at my desk and move my thoughts around in my head and my mind, rather than sitting in the audience and holding my breath for those beautiful words you may utter.

I need both – your words and mine --  but always, I need them in balance.

Keep writing, and I will keep showing up at a handful of your events - and meaning to get to the rest of them. 

Betting on an Acceptance

It couldn’t be any harder to bet on a horse or gamble on a stock than it is to submit poems. Even if there’s no exchange of money, there’s a sense of sending out your soul for approval. 

Journal editors ask that we, the submitters, *read* the journal before submitting. Definitely do your homework, but even so, there are tremendous odds against one of your poems being selected.

How often have I chosen, printed, folded and placed five poems I’m sure are my best work in an envelope? How often have I waited months for a positive response, and then received that horrible super-flat envelope (which, I might add, I addressed to myself)?

Rejection is humbling, but if you keep trying, sometimes your horse comes in first, or the stock rises. Just enough times to keep going.

Silk Shirt Metaphor - Part 2

As you can see, I like choices. This is a photo of a few of my artworks. A few! Really.

Let me go back to that statement: “Writing well is like a closetful of silk shirts.” I want something lovely that’s not super-fancy. Something I can put on and take off again. I need to be able to change my mind; that’s the kind of person I am.

I want to be able to like one sort of writing one day, and have an entirely different opinion about what I want to dress myself in the next.

Today, for example, I’m wondering which silk shirt should I wear, Stick with me as I empty out the writing closet. I’m going to hold each thought up and feel it -, by which I mean, I’m going to write about good writing. And at the same time, I’m going to be continually trying to figure it all out.

The Silk Shirt Metaphor

The title of this blog is a metaphor. Blogging in general is a metaphor for something else. A metaphor for some kind of feeling, perhaps.

Metaphors work best when they make a connection for you, something you’ve never quite thought of before, but once you do think of it, or once someone tells you that this might be like that, it makes absolutely perfect sense. Metaphors are one of those things we all use sometimes, but when you start reading and writing poetry, they become much more familiar.

I’ve decided writing well is more like a closetful of silk shirts than it is like a platter of cupcakes. Don’t believe me? Well, okay. You’re entitled to your opinion.