Whirlwind
No time this evening for more than bullet points to remind myself later what the past couple weeks have been like:
- Was able to arrange my courses in such a way that I'll be doing 100% creative work this term: Workshop, obviously. Close Reading for Writers. The Art of the Historical Avant-Garde.
- Have never seen so much free food & drink in my life.
- Encouraged to first & foremost be my own writer. What better welcome could one ask for?
- Real PEERS. Finally!
- Willie Perdomo reading + reception afterward + breakfast next morning. All exceeding expectations.
- Startling sensation of having arrived in a place that feels like home.
- Lack, so far, of any hint of competitive bullshit.
- Workshop: 7in7 MFA boot camp.
- Touch of blankpageitis.
- Gary Sullivan's "To the People Who 'Had' and 'Ate' Their Own Cake" as nearly perfect DIY manifesto. (See Abraham Lincoln)
- CA Conrad's selections from "FRANK" as genuinely disturbing (in a good way).
- Realizing I haven't sent work out to magazines in about a year. Thinking I might like to, if time permits.
- "the mysterious connection that must be established between the generic and the particular to produce human beauty..." (Thomas Mann, Death in Venice). Dear god, yes. So simple & yet almost revolutionary in relation to the world out there.
- Amazing conversations with Adam about mixed media poetics.
If anyone has suggestions for potentially fruitful writing exercises, I'm all ears. I won't always have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike, and I could use a few constraints to lean on when the air is thin. The only condition is that I will not, will not, will not write lyric epiphanies. They just don't comport with the way I experience the world anymore.
I warned you this post was going to be messy.
Comments
Hey, you're back! Alright!
Posted by: AJPL | September 17, 2007 04:42 PM
Couple of writing exercises I've found effective:
1. Take three random clippings from a newpaper -- three short articles or parts of articles. After reading them, write a poem that illuminates or delineates some kind of connection between the three articles: subject matter, viewpoint, location, commonality of tone or languege, etc. The more subtle or circuitous the connection, the better.
As a variation on the above, use three paintings, chosen at random (from a book of paintings, or in an art gallery, or small postcard reproductions, etc.). Write a poem that finds a connection of some kind between the paintings. Again the more subtle or unexpected, the better. (I first did the painting exercise in a poetry writing class in my last year of high school, ca. 1971-72. It was in that writing exercise that I first discovered the paintings of Goya, who has remained one of my favorites.)
2. Start with a short phrase of two or three words, for example, "before daybreak," or "from the doorway," something fairly simple. Write a poem, or 10 or 15 or 20 lines, in which the third line begins with the short phrase (whatever one you've chosen). Then, start over, and write another poem, in which the same short phrase you started with is now used at the end of the fourth line. Then again, this time with the same short phrase used at the beginning of the seventh or eight line -- roughly halfway through the poem. Then another poem, this time using the same short phrase in the next-to-last line.
This second exercise can be useful for thinking about the structure (I sometimes think of it as the geometrical structure) of a poem.
Posted by: Lyle Daggett | September 17, 2007 08:24 PM