Tonight the poetry workshop I am teaching met again. It is such a different group from the summer's, which was far more homogeneous. This group, while small, is quite various. There are several very quiet people, who as yet have said almost nothing, but they are clearly listening intently, and thinking. When they do speak, they utter something helpful and to the point.
I am thinking what to do next. We have been working on images, discussing Williams "The Red Wheelbarrow" and Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," and creating poems composed of catalogues of images, on the pattern of Plath's "Metaphors" or Ondatchee's "Sweet Like a Crow." Some people really broke through with wonderful, unexpected images there. I had the same experience with that assignment last summer.
I want to follow up with something to do with diction, but I will have to think about what that should be.
It is hard for me not to be too blunt. I want to move people's work along, but without alienating or upsetting them too much. Of course, I remember my first workshop, and how upset and sometimes angry I got, but the anger always made me determined, I think, and made my work improve. If I can just provide a path for this improvement for the students to follow, as I have learned to do in comp classes, that will help. The problem is that poetry is less formulaic. Every person has to find her own way of getting there.
6 comments:
I kind of think that every piece of writing has to find its own shape, whatever genre it might be. I wonder if drawing their attention to line turns might lead to word choices, or at least link. Fun stuff.
That's true. I will definitely be spending quite a long time talking about line turns. But I don't think the people who really need help are ready for that yet. I think it is going to have to be diction and the use of subtlety.
I have crafted by own slogan: "Make it Real!" And I use it a lot. It was inspired by the heavy handed symbols I was getting. And the abstract language and lack of sensory detail.
We are now planning a field trip, and I think either it should be to a restaurant, followed up by recipe poems or "still lives" about the plate of food or to a natural place, like one where Monarchs land in their thousands on trees. I have to find out when and where that might be close-by, if there is such a place. Have any suggestions? Maybe the UCI arboratum?
The idea of a field trip seems not only fun but a good inspiration. You might consider whether the field trip will call upon their known vocabulary or will add new words to their list.
I like knowing that on a poet's book shelf you are more like to find field guides than anthologies. So maybe you don't need the butterflies, just the trees. Student poets love to say "passion," but ask them to look outside the window and name that tree, and there go the sensory details.
limb, bough, trunk, twig, bud, leaves, bark, those night entangled trees
Definitely new words, whether it's a restaurant or natural setting. They will need to pay attention, and a large part of that is putting a name to things.
I am ashamed of myself because I don't know the names of the trees here or of the crazy birds that I think of as parking lot birds. They are black, with the females grayish black, and they have longer tails than starlings and sweet song, very varied. I am sure you know what they are. Are they vireos?
I like Lou's idea. Maybe you ought to get a botanist friend or colleague to come along to help "read" the landscape...
As it happens, I do have a botanist friend, though she might charge us for this.
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