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” »
“Revision is not cleaning up after the party; revision is the party.”
-Source unknown
“Sometimes the best revision of a poem is a new poem.”
-Marvin Bell
Poets use words to make art. Each poem is a combination, not only of words, but of decisions made consciously and unconsciously by the poet. Revision is the process of returning to a draft to make different decisions. This process is fundamental to a poet’s development, since it not only affects the poet’s decisions in relation to the poem she is immediately revisiting, but affects her future decisions in composing and revising new poems.
The appreciation of poetry is largely a matter of taste. Therefore the idea that poetry consists of the “best words in the best order” can not be considered in the context of some universal, objective “best.” Rather, it is a personal best one is always striving toward as a poet, to bring forward what is uniquely one’s own, and therefore ultimately only the poet herself can decide what constitutes a “better” decision in relation to her poem.
And yet, paradoxically, it is through input from other self-aware readers that poets can often develop most quickly, learning through feedback how their decisions affect a receptive other. Through both giving and receiving input on poems, the poet also increasingly learns to act as this receptive other for herself in composing and writing her own poems. This is why workshop groups can provide a powerful boost to the development of any writer, and especially poets.
Continue Reading “The Joy of Revision” »
Stephen Kuusisto posted an insightful take on writing workshops today. Though I have had the good fortune not to encounter those workshop leaders “who want to wave from a considerable height,” his words (and those of St. Augustine) ring true with regard to the conviviality necessary to have a meaningful discussion of art. Sobriety is for the sciences; with aesthetics one must dance around a little in the bacchanal of subjectivity. In this game, stimulation trumps pronouncements, and questions beat answers hands-down.
