Last Night at Writers Place

Open Mic at Writers Place last night.... Scot Isom was the featured reader. Scot was great. I've never seen Scot as into it as he was last night. I thought I was listening to Mr. Silk.

I did three pieces... One was a Diane Ackerman poem - Omens of Winter. The other two were my own... Whirlygirl and Tiananmen Mother.

Ackerman crawls below the surface of the skin to get at those prickly feelings and this is the kind of stuff I eat up in poetry.

Woodbine Writing

Interesting experiences this weekend at the writing workshop. Some good. Some not.

I did experience converting and existing work to a play format. It was actually a poem that I used, and worked very well. I picked up some really good material on shifting points of view.

In addition to that, I found myself trying to force poetry, which is never a good thing and it only resulted in creating frustration. Since frustration is not my idea of creative success, I announced to all at one point, "I'm going home." Of course I didn't.

More on the workshop as I have time. Too much to do to report more now.

Headed for the land of golden corn...

Stick Poet will likely be silent the rest of today, tomorrow and Sunday as I am off to a writing workshop in Iowa. I suppose there is an outside chance I may do an audible post from my cell phone, but otherwise I don't anticipate having PC access to post. Nor likely the time.

With this, I'll close withsome words about words by David Lehman:

"Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they
can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one
owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used."

Everyone have a great weekend!

I have the "Brick"

Yes, all 504 pages of it! Wait... actually it is a never ending book.

I'm referring to I Take Thee, English, for My Beloved by Eileen R. Tabios and published by March Hawk Press.

I am hardly qualified to tell you much about it yet as I have only skimmed through it. But I can tell you that Tabios in this book appears to remain the every consummate poet. Resourcefully creating pliant work intending the reader to participate in the experience. She is so straight forward about that. That I find refreshing.

I will pack this for night time reading this weekend while at an Iowa writing retreat. I think it will make an excellent bedside companion.

When I feel I am able to discuss the book in more detail, you may expect much more in depth commentary on it.

Lois Ames, Friend and Confidant of Anne Sexton to Host a Wilderness House Literary Lunch

Lois Ames, Friend and Confidant of Anne Sexton to Host a Wilderness House Literary Lunch

Ames is a poet, biographer and psychotherapist who graduated from Smith College. She has published biographical essays on Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. She has received numerous awards and citations, including a gold medal from The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration Alumni Association, "For Outstanding Achievements in Education & Human Welfare" and has been a Lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Recommendation

I have been reading some of Diane Ackerman's work from her book Origami Bridges. Diane has captured a lot of very strong images and introspective feelings in this book. Her poems were written during a period in which she underwent intense psychotherapy. Of course one cannot be certain but the presumption is that the therapy added a dimension to her personal reflections that are exposed in her poetry.

A couple of the individual poems that I belief were really vivid and enjoyable to me, were Weathering Depression, Omens of Winter and Holding Radium.

I would recommend this book to others who have perhaps not had an opportunity to see her work for themselves.

Diane Ackerman's web site

Poetry

Chapbook Manuscript

I have successfully pulled together my first chapbook manuscript. I worked extensively on pulling together material yesterday from my archive of work. Making some modifications. Adding some items I previously had intended to leave out after meeting and discussing some of the material with a fellow poet. It encompasses forty pages of writing.

I am not quite ready to submit it for publication yet. Some of the work has been published already individually. Since I am attending a workshop in Iowa this weekend, I e-mailed a manuscript file to the two presenters. I will have an opportunity for a one-on-one secession with one of them during the workshop. This will give me yet another opportunity to perhaps refine it and make necessary adjustments.

The manuscript is titled (working title) Now In Color & Hysteria. So much of my poetry moves between strong social comment and humor. It is that combination that I preface this way: "Now In Color & Hysteria crosses the line between the grave issues of our day and the ridiculous. Changes in life and life altering experiences. Relationships and the relationship between man and his world."

This has been a slow process in coming together. I don't mean so much the writing of the poems, but the decision to create a multi-poem manuscript. Then deciding what goes in and what stays out. Sometimes we get so close to something it is hard to be objective. In all aspects of art, I think the creator is often his or her harshest critic. Writing is no exception to this, at least from my own experience. Even when you feel good about a piece, I find a week, six months down the road I often second guess. I suppose the non-static nature of poetry lends itself well to this sort of internal questioning.

At any rate, it was a happy occasion when I hit the send button to transfer the manuscript file via e-mail. Still, I don't get as I though I might that feeling of conclusion. Quite the contrary, I feel like this is a beginning.


Poems