Photo by Sylvain Pedneault
I was born and raised in a town that recently ranked as the worst place in the nation to live, due to unemployment. My father relocated to the Imperial Valley of California before I was born. He went there to run experimental community-oriented education programs in a school for troubled teens located three blocks north of the U.S.-Mexico border. In the second week of his tenure, students burned the school to the ground.
He went on to receive one of California’s highest awards for education, as well as to testify at trials for drive-by shootings. In the end, his approach to education succeeded in changing the lives of many troubled and disadvantaged students. Conventional schools had given up on them. His new approach succeeded with two key elements: a community of support, and an emphasis on practical skills. He is still remembered fondly as an agent of positive change.
Coming from this background, I adopted the idea that all education is ultimately self-education; that it is my responsibility to seek out books, people, institutions, and other resources to learn what I need, when I need it, on a practical basis. This is part of why, despite a lifelong love of computer programming, I left the computer engineering department at a top school after the first year.
Continue Reading “In Praise of Autodidacticism” »
In preparing for a upcoming workshop on poetic form, it occurs to me to ask (and answer) the question: why should form matter to poets in the twenty-first century? After all, the majority of poems written in English today are written in free verse. Certainly it is important to have a grasp of form in academia, if one is studying verse written before the Second World War. Most poetry written in English, from Beowulf to Wilfred Owen, employed elements of form, and could rightly be called verse. But poets nowadays write poems which often seem to have little connection to the strictures of the past.
What, then, can poets writing today, in the vers libre form that has dominated the past sixty years of poetry, gain from studying English-language forms that moved in and out of fashion over the previous thousand years?
One answer is that the poet can gain a sense of connection to poetic lineage. Discovering that poets have been re-inventing our relationship to language for thousands of years can be deliciously humbling. Perhaps this is what Emerson meant when he said that poetry must be “as new as foam, and as old as the rock.” Even more than this important universal perspective, though, I feel that I have also gained personally as a poet through studying form.
Continue Reading “Notes on Form in Poetry” »
I had a great time facilitating the “Tactics for Sneaky Poets” workshop at Theater 150 this morning. The workshop is a flurry of creative exercises designed to demonstrate various “tactics” that poets can use to be “sneaky” with themselves in the creative process–to outwit the negative critic and analytical mind, and keep on keeping on in a free, creative space. While none of these ideas are are “new” in any universal sense, they are all tried-and-true techniques that have helped me along in my own creative process.
I have also been remiss in my role as a “sideshow barker” for the excellent Big Tent Poetry project. So here is a contribution to that ongoing poetic circus–a list of sneaky ways to keep the plates of poetry spinning.
Get inspired. Prime the pump before writing by reading poems you love by poets you love. Transcribe them. Memorize them. Carry them inside you.
Trigger yourself. Smells, sights, sounds, textures. Let your eyes and your mind wander. Memories, fantasies, reflections. Start anywhere. Just go.
Keep going. Try pushing past where you think the ending occurs. Write a “Part II.”
Use constraints. Use word groups, poetic forms, made-up assignments from friends. Constraints spark creative freedom.
Read and listen. Read your own work aloud, get others to read it back to you. Listen to the music. Tune it up.
Focus on language and lines. Read the poem bottom-up, focus on each line. Does it stand alone on its merits?
Continue Reading “Tactics for Sneaky Poets” »
I will be conducting a new series of poetry workshops this winter at Theater 150. Whether you are just getting started with poetry, or trying to find space on the shelf for yet another poetry prize, you are warmly invited to come cozy up to the art of well-chosen words. Theater 150 is also offering a substantial discount if you sign up for all three classes in the series before January 8th. Class size is extremely limited, and expected to fill up fast. All proceeds once again go to benefit our beloved local theater.
Here are the dates and descriptions for each workshop:
Tactics for Sneaky Poets
Saturday, January 8th, 10am-1pm
Learn new ways to spice up your relationship to poem writing in this fun, interactive course. This class will get you writing and revising in unconventional ways, to spark new creative ideas and energize your poems. Class size is limited to a maximum of five participants to give us an opportunity to shake things up. See poetry from a new angle and take away practical tips to overcome writers’ block and invigorate your revisions.
Continue Reading “Winter Poetry Workshop Series” »
“Then what are we fighting for?”
-Attributed to Winston Churchill, in response to a suggestion that arts education be cut to fund the war effort.
There has been a furor over recent cuts in humanities education at the university level in America. Most of the counter-arguments for keeping the humanities alive play out the “transferable skills” angle. My wife, a piano teacher, knows these arguments all too well–that learning to play an instrument accelerates childhood brain development, and that music actually teaches certain kinds of mathematical reasoning (such as fractions). Likewise, with literature, English departments often underscore the importance of “soft skills” like communication.
But in the end, this line of thinking only lends strength to the argument to, for example, replace courses in Shakespeare with more practical courses in business and technical writing. It is also not difficult to imagine games designed by psychologists to more effectively deliver specific, developmental results than learning to playing Bach partitas ever will. Clearly, the argument that the humanities can deliver practical, bottom-line results is problematic. Why, then, are they so critical in difficult times?
Continue Reading “Why They Are Called ‘The Humanities’” »
Safety glasses optional
I am looking forward to conducting a poetry workshop on Saturday, October 9th from 10am-12:30pm at Theater 150 in Ojai.
Bring a poem of your own to discover The Joy of Revision. Learn how to give and receive feedback in an interactive and supportive environment. Discover how to “calibrate” your perceptions and intentions as a writer through input from intelligent, engaged peers. Explore matters of form and narrative, meaning and mood in your own work along with a select group of fellow writers.
Class size is limited to a maximum of five or six participants to give us an opportunity to dig deep, not only into the poems of the day, but the writing process in general. Come away with insights into your own work, as well as into the greater conversation of poetry.
For more information and to reserve your space, please contact me directly. The workshop is reasonably priced, and all proceeds benefit Theater 150.
