So, with our assignment this month to write a poem or story with an ironic twist or surprise ending, I've been doing a lot of thinking about endings, and I've been realizing just how important those last lines are. They often make or break a poem or story. A wonderful ending doesn't have to be purposefully clever and surprising. In fact, that device, if not used with a sort of gentle light touch, often can feel like a sort of cheap trick. But I'm inclined to believe that an ending that perfectly, and yes, even surprisingly, transforms a poem or a story into something that lifts me up out of the dim room of myself is one of life's most sublime pleasures.
More than once I have literally cried out with sheer joy upon reading a perfect ending. Kay Ryan's poem "Things Shouldn't Be So Hard," and a recent reading of Alice Munro's story "Friend of My Youth," both showered me with such uncontainable delight.
I'd like to point you to one of the most delightful and perfect and even surprising endings in modern poetry. The poem is "A Blessing" by James Wright. Read it now, and let me know your reaction.
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16944
I don't know enough about writing to say for sure, but my best guess is that the way to write endings like this is to let them surprise you, the writer first. At least this is one way to guard against cheap tricks. Just start writing, as Flannery O'Connor, and Raymond Carver, and Alice Munro and many other masters claimed to do, and see where you end up. If you allow yourself to be surprised, the reader will be as well.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Whatcha Reading?
Writers are first readers. We are most trained by our reading. And most of us are pretty compulsive readers. I know when I read something that excites me, I am so moved, my emotions and love are almost overwhelming. And I want to share what I've experienced. And I want to be a part of it through my own writing.
So, what are you reading? Would you share? What's on your nightstand? What keeps you up late long after you should be asleep.
Right now I'm reading: Annie Dillard's A Pilgrim At Tinker Creek for the first time. C.S. Lewis' book of poetry (did you know he wrote poetry, at that it was published?!), and I'm rereading a collected book of some of Alice Munro's short stories, which are absolutely amazing to me.
I find the voices of Dillard and Munro both are strong and vibrant, full of a kind of clarified vision and love and grace that I long for in my own life. They deeply impact me and resonate with me. I am inspired in the purest and truest sense.
And when I read Lewis' poems, I feel as if I'm reading the most beautiful and honest words from a dear, dear, beloved uncle of mine (because I've read all his other stuff). He's an uncle I've heard expounding and telling stories at the Sunday dinner table for years, but in his poetry he is singing, and praying, and it's just a delight.
What about you? What's got you turning pages right now?
So, what are you reading? Would you share? What's on your nightstand? What keeps you up late long after you should be asleep.
Right now I'm reading: Annie Dillard's A Pilgrim At Tinker Creek for the first time. C.S. Lewis' book of poetry (did you know he wrote poetry, at that it was published?!), and I'm rereading a collected book of some of Alice Munro's short stories, which are absolutely amazing to me.
I find the voices of Dillard and Munro both are strong and vibrant, full of a kind of clarified vision and love and grace that I long for in my own life. They deeply impact me and resonate with me. I am inspired in the purest and truest sense.
And when I read Lewis' poems, I feel as if I'm reading the most beautiful and honest words from a dear, dear, beloved uncle of mine (because I've read all his other stuff). He's an uncle I've heard expounding and telling stories at the Sunday dinner table for years, but in his poetry he is singing, and praying, and it's just a delight.
What about you? What's got you turning pages right now?
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Thoughts from a mother to other mother artists (and fathers....and other nurturers)
My return to creative writing coincided (not coincidentally, I believe) with the beginning of my life as mother. Among other things, this means that all my creative work, like everyone else's I know, has to fit around my life. Of course, it's a struggle. A toddler doesn't understand the meaning of "A room of her own." Babies catch colds, they have sleepless nights, cranky days. They need. My family (and many others) need me, the physical me, a lot more than they need my writing. And yet, I believe I need to, I would even say I am called to write. I believe that it is an act of faith and gratitude and perhaps even service. And I believe that learning to live with the tension of these different needs and demands and desires, and learning to trust God with those things and with what I cannot do and with what I must do is one of the most important tasks in my writing.
Right around the time I started writing, I read a little essay by Alicia Ostriker called, "A Wild Surmise: Motherhood and Poetry." Ostriker had encountered feminists who argued a woman diminished her life and her value as an artist if she had children. In this essay, Ostriker makes a strong argument against this lie. I was very inspired by what she wrote, so I'd like to quote it here. I will comment though, that I think men, as well as women who don't have children, can also learn from what she's written, to the extent that she challenges us to look at the whole of life, the actual life we have--a life with family and work and bodies and relationships--as valid, important (and I would argue) even sacred subject matter for any writer.
The quote follows. I'd love to hear your comments. I know she will say things that irritate some people, so.... it would be fun to talk about our reactions.
"... For women as artists, the most obvious truth is that the decision to have children is irrevocable. Having made it you are stuck with it forever; existence is never the same afterward, when you have put yourself, as de Beauvoir correctly says, in the service of the species. You no longer belong to yourself. Your time, energy, body, spirit, and freedom are drained. You do not, however, lack what W. B. Yeats prayed for: an interesting life. In practical terms, you may ask yourself, 'How can I ever write when I am involved with this child?' This is a real and desperate question. But can you imagine Petrarch, Dante, Keats, bemoaning their lot---'God, I'm so involved with this woman, how can I write?'
"The advantage of motherhood for a woman artist is that it puts her in immediate and inescapable contract with the sources of life, death, beauty, growth, corruption. If she is a theoretician it teaches her things she could not learn otherwise; if she is a moralist it engages her in serious and useful work; if she is a romantic it constitutes an adventure which cannot be duplicated by any other, and which is guaranteed to supply her with experiences of utter joy and utter misery; if she is a classicist it will nicely illustrate the vanity of human wishes. If the woman artist has been trained to believe that the activities of motherhood are trivial, tangential to the main issues of life, irrelevant to the great themes of literature, she should untrain herself. The training is misogynist, it protects and perpetuates systems of thought and feeling which prefer violence and death to love and birth, and it is a lie.
"....The writer who is a mother should, I think, record everything she can...and remind herself that there is a subject of incalculably vast significance to humanity, about which virtually nothing is known because writers have not been mothers. 'We think back through our mothers, if we are women,' declares Woolf, but through whom can those who are themselves mothers, when they want to know what this endeavor in their lives means, do their thinking? We should all be looking at each other with a wild surmise, it seems to me, because we all need data, we need information, not only of the sort provided by doctors, psychologists, sociologists examining a phenomenon from the outside, but the sort provided by poets, novelists, artists, from within. As our knowledge begins to accumulate, we can imagine what it would signify to all women, and men, to live in a culture where child-birth and mothering occupied the kind of position that sex and romantic love have occupied in literature and art for the last five hundred years, or the kind of position that warfare has occupied since literature began."
Right around the time I started writing, I read a little essay by Alicia Ostriker called, "A Wild Surmise: Motherhood and Poetry." Ostriker had encountered feminists who argued a woman diminished her life and her value as an artist if she had children. In this essay, Ostriker makes a strong argument against this lie. I was very inspired by what she wrote, so I'd like to quote it here. I will comment though, that I think men, as well as women who don't have children, can also learn from what she's written, to the extent that she challenges us to look at the whole of life, the actual life we have--a life with family and work and bodies and relationships--as valid, important (and I would argue) even sacred subject matter for any writer.
The quote follows. I'd love to hear your comments. I know she will say things that irritate some people, so.... it would be fun to talk about our reactions.
"... For women as artists, the most obvious truth is that the decision to have children is irrevocable. Having made it you are stuck with it forever; existence is never the same afterward, when you have put yourself, as de Beauvoir correctly says, in the service of the species. You no longer belong to yourself. Your time, energy, body, spirit, and freedom are drained. You do not, however, lack what W. B. Yeats prayed for: an interesting life. In practical terms, you may ask yourself, 'How can I ever write when I am involved with this child?' This is a real and desperate question. But can you imagine Petrarch, Dante, Keats, bemoaning their lot---'God, I'm so involved with this woman, how can I write?'
"The advantage of motherhood for a woman artist is that it puts her in immediate and inescapable contract with the sources of life, death, beauty, growth, corruption. If she is a theoretician it teaches her things she could not learn otherwise; if she is a moralist it engages her in serious and useful work; if she is a romantic it constitutes an adventure which cannot be duplicated by any other, and which is guaranteed to supply her with experiences of utter joy and utter misery; if she is a classicist it will nicely illustrate the vanity of human wishes. If the woman artist has been trained to believe that the activities of motherhood are trivial, tangential to the main issues of life, irrelevant to the great themes of literature, she should untrain herself. The training is misogynist, it protects and perpetuates systems of thought and feeling which prefer violence and death to love and birth, and it is a lie.
"....The writer who is a mother should, I think, record everything she can...and remind herself that there is a subject of incalculably vast significance to humanity, about which virtually nothing is known because writers have not been mothers. 'We think back through our mothers, if we are women,' declares Woolf, but through whom can those who are themselves mothers, when they want to know what this endeavor in their lives means, do their thinking? We should all be looking at each other with a wild surmise, it seems to me, because we all need data, we need information, not only of the sort provided by doctors, psychologists, sociologists examining a phenomenon from the outside, but the sort provided by poets, novelists, artists, from within. As our knowledge begins to accumulate, we can imagine what it would signify to all women, and men, to live in a culture where child-birth and mothering occupied the kind of position that sex and romantic love have occupied in literature and art for the last five hundred years, or the kind of position that warfare has occupied since literature began."
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Giving Up On Good
Our assignment this month was to write a story, poem or essay with a surprise ending or an ironic twist...a la O'Henry. To be honest, my initial reaction to that assignment hasn't changed much.... I'm still at a sort of low level panic. How in the world am I going to pull this one off? Where do I even begin? And even more fundamentally, why even begin when I don't have a hope of succeeding?
Now, while I'm not experienced with surprise plot twists, I do have quite a lot of experience with that feeling of numbing, freezing self-doubt.
The particulars vary but the tune is the same: I want to do something good. I can't see how I can write a good poem, or a good story, or a good essay. I probably will fail. I don't know how to do it. So, why even start?
You might think this is all about insecurity and a lack of confidence. But I'm not sure. I think the basic problem is one of beliefs. Beliefs that are flawed.
Let me list what I think are some of those beliefs that keep writers from writing, and then let's examine them together. I'd LOVE your help on this problem, so, please comment.
First, I believe that if I am a real writer, I should know how to produce good writing. I should be in control of the process, and I should be able to control the quality of the product. There's also the belief that only the finished product is important. And that only high quality literature is worth writing. I want to examine these beliefs with you in reverse order.
If it's not literature, it's not worth writing.
I think this is the most fundamental of these beliefs. If it's not "good" writing, then I really probably shouldn't waste my time. But this belief begs the question: what is "good art" anyway? Who do I let decide for me what is worth doing? Whom have I chosen as my editor or critic to decide whether my thoughts are worth granting a voice to?
Of course, I can recognize that there are great writers, but I think it's important to get over the idea that my writing is worthless if it doesn't match theirs. Gerard Manly Hopkins or Emily Dickinson (as two examples) are amazingly gifted poets, and in a comparison, my writing doesn't do too well. But I think a little closer inspection reveals that no one, including God, expects me to be Hopkins or Dickinson. They did that well enough. My goal is not to be a "great writer" (or a great anything), but rather, to be myself (more specifically as a Christian, to be myself redeemed in Christ), and to use my abilities and gifts and cultural context and personality to tell the stories and write the poems that I need to write, and that perhaps, in some cases, my community needs to read.
Only the finished product is important
Almost any artist will tell you that something happens in the process of creating that is even more wonderful than a succesful product, or at least the process is so linked as to be irreducible from the product. As I recognize this, the need to know I will have a great poem at the end of a week or a month of writing becomes a little less strangling.
Don't get me wrong, I still want to write poems and stories that I and others appreciate as good reading, but, more and more I don't feel the need for any particular poem I'm working on to be successful. What I need is to write.
I should be in control of the process and the product
We've all heard that good writing doesn't happen in the first drafts. But I've found that even when I accept the rough draft is going to be rough, I still try to demand some assurance that I'll be able to get to "good" by at least draft three, or five, or ten. But this anxiety and need for control usually prevents me from really "going for" it in the first few drafts. I keep trying to know what I'm saying, what I "mean," trying to guess how it will be received by readers who can pronounce it "good." If I stay in that space, I can write something that people generally like. I know the tricks to the writing that follows the rules. But that's not the writing that keeps me writing. That's not the writing that reminds me I'm alive. And that's not the writing that ultimately really excites the thoughtful reader, either.
To get to the writing I care about, I have to say every single time I begin that this time I might very well fail miserably. In fact, I probably will. And then I tell myself, "just have fun, just go for it."
All that matters is that I write, and that I write holding nothing back, without any thought of whether it will turn out well, or whether it will ever have any chance of being understood or appreciated by another soul.
This poem or story will not necessarily be good literature, but this poem or story-- if I am faithful in the writing, in the listening, in the truth-telling, in my work--will take me on a journey. The journey might be two drafts or eighty-two drafts long, and it might result in a "masterpiece" (although that hasn't happened yet), or a rather complicated, rambling journal entry, but "good" or not, it will always be worth the time and attention I have given it.
And so, I come to this "surprise ending" assignment with the same unknowns about the product. Right now all I have is a vague memory of some funny family stories that had little twists to them. I don't know how to write them down, but I'm going to start writing. I don't know if I will let anyone else read what I've written. But I'm very much looking forward to beginning. I'm looking forward to the "playing," and to the journey.
This is where I've come, even through the writing of this blog, but I'd like to hear from you. What are some of the beliefs that prevent you from writing or producing art?
---Jenny
Now, while I'm not experienced with surprise plot twists, I do have quite a lot of experience with that feeling of numbing, freezing self-doubt.
The particulars vary but the tune is the same: I want to do something good. I can't see how I can write a good poem, or a good story, or a good essay. I probably will fail. I don't know how to do it. So, why even start?
You might think this is all about insecurity and a lack of confidence. But I'm not sure. I think the basic problem is one of beliefs. Beliefs that are flawed.
Let me list what I think are some of those beliefs that keep writers from writing, and then let's examine them together. I'd LOVE your help on this problem, so, please comment.
First, I believe that if I am a real writer, I should know how to produce good writing. I should be in control of the process, and I should be able to control the quality of the product. There's also the belief that only the finished product is important. And that only high quality literature is worth writing. I want to examine these beliefs with you in reverse order.
If it's not literature, it's not worth writing.
I think this is the most fundamental of these beliefs. If it's not "good" writing, then I really probably shouldn't waste my time. But this belief begs the question: what is "good art" anyway? Who do I let decide for me what is worth doing? Whom have I chosen as my editor or critic to decide whether my thoughts are worth granting a voice to?
Of course, I can recognize that there are great writers, but I think it's important to get over the idea that my writing is worthless if it doesn't match theirs. Gerard Manly Hopkins or Emily Dickinson (as two examples) are amazingly gifted poets, and in a comparison, my writing doesn't do too well. But I think a little closer inspection reveals that no one, including God, expects me to be Hopkins or Dickinson. They did that well enough. My goal is not to be a "great writer" (or a great anything), but rather, to be myself (more specifically as a Christian, to be myself redeemed in Christ), and to use my abilities and gifts and cultural context and personality to tell the stories and write the poems that I need to write, and that perhaps, in some cases, my community needs to read.
Only the finished product is important
Almost any artist will tell you that something happens in the process of creating that is even more wonderful than a succesful product, or at least the process is so linked as to be irreducible from the product. As I recognize this, the need to know I will have a great poem at the end of a week or a month of writing becomes a little less strangling.
Don't get me wrong, I still want to write poems and stories that I and others appreciate as good reading, but, more and more I don't feel the need for any particular poem I'm working on to be successful. What I need is to write.
I should be in control of the process and the product
We've all heard that good writing doesn't happen in the first drafts. But I've found that even when I accept the rough draft is going to be rough, I still try to demand some assurance that I'll be able to get to "good" by at least draft three, or five, or ten. But this anxiety and need for control usually prevents me from really "going for" it in the first few drafts. I keep trying to know what I'm saying, what I "mean," trying to guess how it will be received by readers who can pronounce it "good." If I stay in that space, I can write something that people generally like. I know the tricks to the writing that follows the rules. But that's not the writing that keeps me writing. That's not the writing that reminds me I'm alive. And that's not the writing that ultimately really excites the thoughtful reader, either.
To get to the writing I care about, I have to say every single time I begin that this time I might very well fail miserably. In fact, I probably will. And then I tell myself, "just have fun, just go for it."
All that matters is that I write, and that I write holding nothing back, without any thought of whether it will turn out well, or whether it will ever have any chance of being understood or appreciated by another soul.
This poem or story will not necessarily be good literature, but this poem or story-- if I am faithful in the writing, in the listening, in the truth-telling, in my work--will take me on a journey. The journey might be two drafts or eighty-two drafts long, and it might result in a "masterpiece" (although that hasn't happened yet), or a rather complicated, rambling journal entry, but "good" or not, it will always be worth the time and attention I have given it.
And so, I come to this "surprise ending" assignment with the same unknowns about the product. Right now all I have is a vague memory of some funny family stories that had little twists to them. I don't know how to write them down, but I'm going to start writing. I don't know if I will let anyone else read what I've written. But I'm very much looking forward to beginning. I'm looking forward to the "playing," and to the journey.
This is where I've come, even through the writing of this blog, but I'd like to hear from you. What are some of the beliefs that prevent you from writing or producing art?
---Jenny
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Snail Mail Art
Today's Bee has an article about Julia O'Connor, Sacramento's poet laureate. Her most recent project, called "Mail Art," encouraged area residents to write poetry and make art on postcards, and then send them through the mail. An exhibit of these postcards is now on display in Sacramento at La Raza Galeria Posada, 1022-1024 22nd St. through the first week of May.
I've heard her read, and she's a fascinating person. I'm sure the exhibit would be worth checking out. Actually, I and an artist friend made one of those postcards (a year ago). But, I doubt we are one of the 400 (out of 912) that made the cut. We'll have to see.
Here's the link. http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/154828.html
Thanks to Ginger Irvine for this information!
I've heard her read, and she's a fascinating person. I'm sure the exhibit would be worth checking out. Actually, I and an artist friend made one of those postcards (a year ago). But, I doubt we are one of the 400 (out of 912) that made the cut. We'll have to see.
Here's the link. http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/154828.html
Thanks to Ginger Irvine for this information!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Bedlam's Bard-- In Praise of Praising
April 11 is the birthday of Christopher Smart, a "religious" poet (according to Writer's Almanac) born in Shipbourne, Kent, England (1722).
This month we're reading a small fragment of one of his two major works of poetry--written while he was involunatarily committed to St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics (in Bethnal Green) for his "religious mania," which caused him to pray obsessively and in public.
The fragment about his cat Jeoffry is from "Jubilate Agno," (1763) a very long and unfinished poem in which he attempts to give thanks for absolutely everything. He starts this fragment, "For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him."
He then goes on to do just that...to consider Jeoffry in the context of how he serves the Living God. What follows is an absolutely delightful poem that has raised me out of many a sour or self-absorbed funk. I will link it here http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/661.html.
Here are just a few of the lines I love:
"For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life."
and....
"For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat."
and...
"For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion." and .....
I could go on and on but what I'd really love is for you to read it and love it too, and then tell me which are your favorite lines.
I'd also like to note a couple other fascinating things about Smart and this poem in particular.
1) His delight in the world, and his all-out, nothing-held-back stance of praise. This awes and motivates me at my core. He has invested his whole being into praising...to the extent that his work is to sing about a cat, and his reward is the lunatic asylum.
2) The courageous and vulnerable individual. Smart the man, the poet, the artist is wonderfully alive and visible in his writing about Jeoffry. We see his individuality in the observations he sees and in the playful and earnest way he describes the cat.
3) The community. This might be less visible. Surely he didn't fit into society, and he was undoubtedly suffering. But we can see his community in the form that he chose for his poem. His poetry is obviously informed by the Psalms, he displays his affinity for the Psalms writers and the church, although he expresses himself so radically as an individual that he doesn't fit easily in the church. Despite the struggles Smart had and my compassion for those struggles, I have to say I love how he comprehended at a deep level and then appropriated the form of the psalm for his own purpose.
We are all writing in a certain time and place. As I struggle to find the form for my writing, I find every poem I write is very directly influenced by the poems I read and the poets and thinkers I talk to. I hope I can be more influenced by Smart and other praisers like him.
Let me suggest you try to "consider"something...a cat, a dog, a child, a flower, a playground, a meal, a party, a rainstorm, a bird, an ocean, a friend....and note everything you possibly can about that very specific "servant of the living God."
Perhaps you will surprise yourself and end up finding how you too are a mixture of "gravity and waggery."
If you would like to read more of Jubilate Agno (and it's very, very long!) here's a link: http://www.pseudopodium.org/repress/jubilate/ Don't try to print it unless you got lotsa time and paper, cause it's LONG. (By the way, it wasn't published until 1939.. that's almost 200 years after it was written.)
Happy Christopher Smart Day!
---Jenny
This month we're reading a small fragment of one of his two major works of poetry--written while he was involunatarily committed to St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics (in Bethnal Green) for his "religious mania," which caused him to pray obsessively and in public.
The fragment about his cat Jeoffry is from "Jubilate Agno," (1763) a very long and unfinished poem in which he attempts to give thanks for absolutely everything. He starts this fragment, "For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him."
He then goes on to do just that...to consider Jeoffry in the context of how he serves the Living God. What follows is an absolutely delightful poem that has raised me out of many a sour or self-absorbed funk. I will link it here http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/661.html.
Here are just a few of the lines I love:
"For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life."
and....
"For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat."
and...
"For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion." and .....
I could go on and on but what I'd really love is for you to read it and love it too, and then tell me which are your favorite lines.
I'd also like to note a couple other fascinating things about Smart and this poem in particular.
1) His delight in the world, and his all-out, nothing-held-back stance of praise. This awes and motivates me at my core. He has invested his whole being into praising...to the extent that his work is to sing about a cat, and his reward is the lunatic asylum.
2) The courageous and vulnerable individual. Smart the man, the poet, the artist is wonderfully alive and visible in his writing about Jeoffry. We see his individuality in the observations he sees and in the playful and earnest way he describes the cat.
3) The community. This might be less visible. Surely he didn't fit into society, and he was undoubtedly suffering. But we can see his community in the form that he chose for his poem. His poetry is obviously informed by the Psalms, he displays his affinity for the Psalms writers and the church, although he expresses himself so radically as an individual that he doesn't fit easily in the church. Despite the struggles Smart had and my compassion for those struggles, I have to say I love how he comprehended at a deep level and then appropriated the form of the psalm for his own purpose.
We are all writing in a certain time and place. As I struggle to find the form for my writing, I find every poem I write is very directly influenced by the poems I read and the poets and thinkers I talk to. I hope I can be more influenced by Smart and other praisers like him.
Let me suggest you try to "consider"something...a cat, a dog, a child, a flower, a playground, a meal, a party, a rainstorm, a bird, an ocean, a friend....and note everything you possibly can about that very specific "servant of the living God."
Perhaps you will surprise yourself and end up finding how you too are a mixture of "gravity and waggery."
If you would like to read more of Jubilate Agno (and it's very, very long!) here's a link: http://www.pseudopodium.org/repress/jubilate/ Don't try to print it unless you got lotsa time and paper, cause it's LONG. (By the way, it wasn't published until 1939.. that's almost 200 years after it was written.)
Happy Christopher Smart Day!
---Jenny
Monday, April 9, 2007
Writer's Conference
For anyone with an interest in writing poetry, the Sacramento Poetry Center in downtown Sac is a tremendous resource. Check it out at www.sacramentopoetrycenter.org
I attend a weekly workshop--Tuesday nights. Every Monday evening they have poetry readings. They also have a monthly publication Poetry Now. And on April 20-21, the center is holding a writer's conference.
Here is the information I have on the conference.
All events take place at 1719 25th St. in Sacramento. There will be a reading and reception Friday night, April 20th beginning at 7 PM, featuring Heather Hutcheson, Andy Jones, Danny Romero, & Brad Henderson. Saturday, April 21, from 8:30 AM to 4 PM will be a series of workshops with Andy Jones, Brad Henderson, Gail Entrekin, Camille Norton, Heather Hutcheson, Tim Kahl, Sac City Ethnic Theatre Workshop, Danny Romero, and Angela Dee Alforque. See your April “Poetry Now’ for more details. The fees are $25 for SPC members and $35 for non-members. Make checks payable to SPC and mail to SPC Writers’ Conference, 1719 25th St., Sacramento, CA 95814. An entry form is printed in your April “Poetry Now.” The day will close with a participant group reading and celebration.
I probably will not be able to attend, but I'm working my angles right now. I have found this to be a great group of people and a tremendous resource and community, and I highly endorse them! Let me know if you are thinking of going or if you go.
---Jenny
I attend a weekly workshop--Tuesday nights. Every Monday evening they have poetry readings. They also have a monthly publication Poetry Now. And on April 20-21, the center is holding a writer's conference.
Here is the information I have on the conference.
All events take place at 1719 25th St. in Sacramento. There will be a reading and reception Friday night, April 20th beginning at 7 PM, featuring Heather Hutcheson, Andy Jones, Danny Romero, & Brad Henderson. Saturday, April 21, from 8:30 AM to 4 PM will be a series of workshops with Andy Jones, Brad Henderson, Gail Entrekin, Camille Norton, Heather Hutcheson, Tim Kahl, Sac City Ethnic Theatre Workshop, Danny Romero, and Angela Dee Alforque. See your April “Poetry Now’ for more details. The fees are $25 for SPC members and $35 for non-members. Make checks payable to SPC and mail to SPC Writers’ Conference, 1719 25th St., Sacramento, CA 95814. An entry form is printed in your April “Poetry Now.” The day will close with a participant group reading and celebration.
I probably will not be able to attend, but I'm working my angles right now. I have found this to be a great group of people and a tremendous resource and community, and I highly endorse them! Let me know if you are thinking of going or if you go.
---Jenny
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