Category Archives: Vicky’s Blog

Crow School

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Kay Ryan has a way of getting right to the point. I’ve been subscribing to Poetry Foundation’s Audio-Poem-of-the-Day. So each morning I get to hear a poem read to me. It’s a good way to start my writing time.

A Draft of a Kay Ryan Poem

A Draft of a Kay Ryan Poem

This morning “Felix Crow” was in my ear. It made me think of my last post, “The Secret.” So far (it has been only a few days now), I’ve been good about looking for that moment during the day when I see something new or beautiful or amazing.

Kay Ryan’s “Felix Crow” calls attention to those things we don’t always see as beautiful, like crows. We tend to over-look certain creatures who don’t meet the standard definition of beauty. Here in Florida, we certainly ooh-and-aah when we see the roseate spoonbills or a tri-colored heron. Not so much, a crow or buzzard. imgres-1

“Felix Crow” called me up on that. So I’m opening my eyes a little wider today. Thanks to Kay Ryan.

Here’s the poem. Just click to hear the reading.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/audio/FelixCrow_byKay.mp3

P. S. For those of you following my earlier posts on writing prompts, the poem (and crows)   made me think of another writing prompt.  Today look for something others might not think of as beautiful. Later when you return to your notebook, write for ten minutes or more about what you saw.  

Felix Crow 

Crow school
is basic and
short as a rule—
just the rudiments
of quid pro crow
for most students.
Then each lives out
his unenlightened
span, adding his
bit of blight
to the collected
history of pushing out
the sweeter species;
briefly swaggering the
swagger of his
aggravating ancestors
down my street.
And every time
I like him
when we meet.
________________
Kay Ryan
Source: Poetry (November 2004)

Jumpstart Your Writing: Valentine’s Day Prompts

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We’re headed into the third week of our “Jumpstart Your Writing” workshop here on Sanibel. It is going well. Nine of us are writing like crazy. For each class, I’ve created an envelope of “jumpstarts.” The first week the ten-minute prompts were adapted from Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Faraway. I typed and printed out a couple of sheets of Natalie’s ten-minute writing prompts and then cut the paper into slips, which I placed in an envelope for each person. The idea is to draw one or two slips from the envelope and, without pausing to think too much, plunge in and write for at least ten-minutes. The second week’s envelope included prompts based on stories and people. The third week’s collection was from the prompts we each created during the first class meeting. Other strategies have included story-telling (comparing oral and written versions of the same story) and writing from photographs. We’re using In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction for inspiration and as models for our own writing. Next week we focus on words. We’ll each bring in a piece of writing that we love because of the words.

imagesSince tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, here are two poems: one by Tony Hoagland, one by Gertrude Stein (which I like because of the sound of the words.)

The prompt (Hoagland): Pick a simple object (like a windchime) and pair that object with a person you love or loved. (It doesn’t have to be romantic love. Any kind of love will do just fine.) Write for ten minutes.

The prompt (Stein): “Twinkling with delight…” Use this phrase as a start. Go for ten minutes. (Note: If you click on the high-lighted word burr in Stein’s poem, you will find a page that talks about Stein,Toklas, and this poem. You’ll also see that Stein’s poem was a kind of “note in a bottle.” I’ll say more about this in my next blog.)

Windchime

BY TONY HOAGLAND

She goes out to hang the windchime
in her nightie and her work boots.
It’s six-thirty in the morning
and she’s standing on the plastic ice chest
tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch,
windchime in her left hand,
hammer in her right, the nail
gripped tight between her teeth
but nothing happens next because
she’s trying to figure out
how to switch #1 with #3.
She must have been standing in the kitchen,
coffee in her hand, asleep,
when she heard it—the wind blowing
through the sound the windchime
wasn’t making
because it wasn’t there.
No one, including me, especially anymore believes
till death do us part,
but I can see what I would miss in leaving—
the way her ankles go into the work boots
as she stands upon the ice chest;
the problem scrunched into her forehead;
the little kissable mouth
with the nail in it.

 

“Windchime” copyright © 2003 by Tony Hoagland. Reprinted from What Narcissism Means to Me with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. All rights reserved. www.graywolfpress.org

___________________________________________

[The house was just twinkling in the moon light]

BY GERTRUDE STEIN

The house was just twinkling in the moon light,
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twinkling in the moon light,
Her hubby dear loves to cheer when he thinks
and he always thinks when he knows and he always
knows that his blessed baby wifey is all here and he
is all hers, and sticks to her like burrs, blessed baby

 

Gertrude Stein, “[The house was twinkling in the moon light]” from Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (St. Martin’s Press, 1999). Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Gertrude Stein.

These poems (and thousands more) can be found on the Poetry Foundation website:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org.

Li-Young Lee’s “The Gift”

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imagesAs I prepare for a writing workshop here at BIG Arts in Sanibel, I’ve been looking for poems to use as inspiration and a source for writing ideas. “The Gift” by Li-Young Lee seems like a good choice, especially for focusing on writing about family.

Here’s the poem and a video of Li-Young Lee reading and discussing the poem. If you’re looking for writing ideas today, try a line or two from the poem and go for ten minutes.

The class (“Jumpstart Your Writing”) will meet for the next five weeks. I’ll be posting some of our readings and writings. If you write something (poem, short nonfiction, fiction) inspired by the readings, send your work my way ([email protected]).  I’d love to hear what you’re doing and will post some of the writing on this site.

Click the link below to hear Li-Young Lee reading “The Gift.”

http://vimeo.com/36988030

“The Gift” by LI-YOUNG LEE

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

_________________

Li-Young Lee, “The Gift” from Rose.  Copyright ©1986 by Li-Young Lee. Reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions Ltd., www.boaeditions.org.

Source: Rose (BOA Editions Ltd., 1986)

Tell Me More

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If I had to choose one book for my desert island writing retreat, it would be Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write. Fear and laziness are sent packing when I read her words.

Brenda Ueland

“Everybody Is Talented, Original, and Has Something Important To Say,” she announces right off as the headliner title of Chapter One. She goes on to say how this originality, talent, and truth comes out when each of us pays careful attention to the world around us and writes from that unique perspective.

Brenda Ueland was born in Minneapolis in 1891 in a home overlooking Lake Calhoun. She returned to Minneapolis after a sojourn in New York where she worked as a journalist and was part of the Greenwich Village bohemian crowd (John Reed, Louise Bryant, Eugene O’Neill).  She continued her work as a writer, editor, and teacher of writing. I remember seeing her feeding the geese around Lake Harriet, another Minneapolis city lake. She was a swimmer and an avid walker, sometimes walking nine miles a day. She died at age 93, in 1985.

About her classes at the Minneapolis YWCA, she writes in the preface to the second edition: “I think I was a splendid teacher, and so did they.”  Her words capture her spirit and honesty. She is captivated by the unique lives of her students. She listens and encourages them to keep writing.  “The only good teachers are those who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny, whose attitude is: ‘Tell me more. Tell me all you can. I want to understand more about everything you feel and know and all the changes inside and out of you. Let more come out.’ ”

I remember a Vietnam vet in one of my classes many years ago. He stopped by my office to ask if I would read a poem he had written. “I carried this around with me all during the war,” he said. He took out his billfold and unfolded a single sheet of paper that had been folded and re-folded so many times it almost fluttered away in the air.

He read this poem that compressed all his feelings, everything about the war and loss, into a few lines. Then he folded and re-folded it and put it back in his billfold. The poem contained all his anguish, pain, love. We talked about his poem, and I told him how amazing it was. “Now write more,” I said. “Tell me as much as you can remember.” His poem contained more than any one poem could contain. It was breaking at its seams for all the power it held in its folds.

Sometimes this happens to us as writers.

We write one story, one poem, one essay, and then carry it around with us.  We take it to every writer’s group or class we join. Maybe we change or add a few words here and there.  What would happen if we said to ourselves, Yes, I wrote that. Good. Now I’m going to write more? Imagine someone who wants to hear it all. Sure, we can go back and revise, but don’t get stuck in that one place.  Keep pushing out, taking risks, Write about the day you are living in. Tell me how the fish darted away when you swam in the lake with your eight-year-old granddaughter. Tell me about your friend who is dying. Tell me about what it’s like to go bald or to let your hair go silver. I want to know.

I started off this entry talking about a desert island. Sometimes I do feel as if I’m stranded on such an island of my own making. I question how I got there and why I ever wanted to write anyway.  Brenda Ueland finds inspiration from many great writers, artists, and composers (Blake, Chekhov, Van Gogh, Mozart) as she makes her case: we are not alone. And if we look around, it isn’t a desert island—more an oasis.

One of the reasons Carol and I are creating this website and writing blogs together is because we believe we writers need each other.

Carol and I could never have done the anthology alone. When one of us would be ready to throw in the towel, the other would be all happy and up beat. When one was busy, the other one took up the slack. We have done all this through writing. We have only seen each other in person twice: once when we met in Russia and once when we met in North Carolina. Carol’s blogs inspire me; she inspires me. I hope together, with other writers (Brenda Ueland, Susan Surman, Molly Peacock, Shirley Deane), our students, and other creative people (Mrs. Delany, Ruth Hodges, Lenore Latimer), we can create an oasis.  We can say to at least one other person, “Tell me more.”

(In my next blog, I’ll talk about what we do after we’ve written pages and pages. Where does all that writing go? But first we have to write!)