Festifall Writing Activity Sentences

At our Festifall table, we had set up a writing activity where people drew one word each from three different cups containing adjectives, verbs, and nouns, and wrote a sentence on-the-spot using the three words. Many people participated, and we ended up with a lot of sentences. Here are some of the highlights:

Your lips inspire me to be lazy.

I lied when I said I was jealous of your body.

Her lips appear soft, red; in a word, delicious. I hesitate to think of the colors feelings emotions evoked by the simplest of contact with them.

He conquered my curves with alarming finesse.

There was something quite inspiring and sexy about the way the vomit pooled on the floor.

If I wake up past tomorrow morning, I'm limp and lost, because I obviously slept with a hooker.

The lesson my mother taught me is a secret which I only think about when I caress my pet cat Celia.

Though subtle at first, the trickle of spring melt soon turned into a roaring river that seemed like it would never stop.

Dream yourself out of embarrassment, naïve girl.

I am thoroughly embarrassed by the orgasmic reaction to the passage of linear time. Alas!

Commandment XI: “Thou shalt honor and caress thy tender guitar.”

I discovered delicious intestines inside me.

While you conquered “Love Me Tender” on your mandolin, I chopped vegetables for stir-fry.

Indulge in the morning, though your limbs may be limp.

Thoughts

Hi everyone!

Neil and I went to the Summer Hopwood award ceremony today to see Bethany get recognized and read her prize-winning poetry. It was a small, but classy ceremony, and Bethany read two excellent poems, the first of which was one of the earliest poems she had brought to Writers' Community to workshop. I have to say, listening to her read, I felt so incredibly proud of her, and realized again how thoroughly she deserved to win. Once more, congratulations, Bethany!

So, seeing this prestigious award ceremony and all, I've been thinking a lot about what makes writing *good* writing. We had a discussion along these lines on the blog some time ago, I know, but today my modern poetry professor read us a quotation by Matthew Arnold that tried to answer this very question. Here it is:

"For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment."

Arnold meant it in the historic sense of time and place (my professor used it in reference to Yeats writing about the Irish rebellion against the British), but I think "the moment" is also an interesting way to describe that flash of inspiration that sometimes comes over a writer. Indeed, that's how it works for me; I'll have "a moment" of clarity and deep feeling in which I'll jot down some words, and then have hours and hours of that muddled second-guessing process we call "editing". What do you guys think?

And lastly, since I've promised to write and bring a poem to the next meeting, I have, of course, been thinking particularly about poetry. This is not the form that comes most naturally to me--and yet, as a reader, I feel like nothing is more "natural" than a poem well written. It's hard, as a writer (I guess I should say "as a poet") to figure out what you want to say, and how, exactly, it can be said most effectively. To give this ultimate question some perspective, I will end this post with the last few lines of Marianne Moore's poem "Poetry", in which she outlines, consisely and perfectly, exactly what a reader should expect from "poetry":

"In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry."

Eastward, Onward, Forward

Strolling down Magnificent Ave.
With cane and coat and keys.
walking eastward, onward, forward,
in search of boundary.

Mile one is done, as is two,
Now I'm working on three.
I'll keep on going with steady gait
Until I'm ready.

I don't yet know how far i'll go,
the trail has yet to tell.
But I'll continue 'til I'm there,
or 'til my feet should swell.

I'm walking eastward, onward, forward,
steady on my path.
Never a better road to travel
than down Magnificent Ave.




(Draft one, please comment)

The Derelict

Move along. Nothing to see here.
Nothing but this mendicant man.
He's been begging in the same place
All day.

"Spare some change, sir?
Have a good day."
That's all I ever hear him say.
There's a sigh in his eyes.

Some time soon I'll join him.
Some time soon, I say.
Maybe another day.

I'll buy him lunch or coffee.
Hear what he has to say.
But not today, no.
Another day.

On a String

Here's his black hair
His brown eyes are open
His nose is here
His lips are smiling
He's wearing a blue shirt
He's wearing black pants
Here are his sneakers
And here's a pin
And the doll cries

Comment on anything, including title, punctuation, etc.

Scheduling

Anyone have preferences/requests for when meetings should be this semester? Also, we could all put our class schedules on M-Schedule and then find out that way when we're all free. I'm pretty much free for anytime I don't have class.

CONGRATS BETHANY!!!!!

For those of you who don't know, our very own Bethany Goad has won a Hopwood for her poetry!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!!!! This is an incredible achievement which Bethany entirely deserves since her poetry is so fricken awesome! The awards ceremony will be held September 22nd at 11 am if you'd like to stop by and give Bethany your congrats. If you can't make it then, be sure to come to our first Writer's Comm meeting of the year and tell Bethany how cool she is, and how cool it is to know a girl who won a Hopwood.

I admire your talent and am happy it's been recognized, Bethany! Cheers! ^_^

Jenny

poem:HIPPOCRATIC GARDENS AND JARS OF BILE

(title needs work)

I had it stashed in my brain:
how my landlord, Sandra, kept
the face and neck of a snake
in a squat jar filled with vinegar.
This was her spectacle about death--
how to deal with dying, or how to die.

I turned seven before spotting
the jar in our shed--before the jar spotted me.
Sandra hadn't intended so much for humor,
as she had to set a spectacle.
And that was the thing
about death and its aftermath.

I couldn't have been
more surprised to learn that
such snakes tend only to help
gardens grow by masticating
certain pests--shaded black and brown,
which are the colors of melancholy.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
how does your garden grow?" Then,
words fell flat off my mouth: I dreamt
of an old pal and her brothers--
the three of them--stepping off a cliff,
as if in obedience to an unspoken mantra.

This all happened before
our move to that house with the shed.
What did the rest of the verse do but fail me?
The hoe had twice fallen straight on its neck
and seemed to have splattered it
into three pieces, now caught in a jar.

It couldn't even scream or make babies,
this all happened so fast.
Hadn't its blood been yellow, like dragons'
in Renaissance fairytales? Or, I had made this up too?
Unlike that myth about the poisons excreted
by our bad humors into our blood. Choleric-yellow, for example.

When another one slid around the bend,
I shrieked sanguinely and my mother finished it off--
"With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row."
Somehow, that made even less sense than the rest.
As did the kinds of solid questions
I took too shy of a blush to utter.

Not even scrapping questions
like, What's the origin of this plot?
Who took grandpa's hand on the way to the cemetary?
Why won't Ms. Sandra-landlord
show herself when I'm around?
Where'd its blood go, and why not red?

The kinds of suckers people call leeches
didn't begin to help
with removing that bad bile
they used to believe our blood was made of.
Nor was it that the screening for life
and the carbon dating system had let me down.

In my quest for the exact
age and reason for the canyons,
I simply decided to suffer the literary approach--
which is to say I've taken a certain
so-called mythology very seriously,
and have given up on blanket answers.

Idea for next year

I was thinking, yesterday, about how many of us know how to play instruments, and I realized that at least part of the way into next year, if not at the beginning, it will be at least me, Rachel, Manisha, Josh, and Will. So I got to thinking, music is related to English, writing, and just creativity in general...why don't we have a music meeting where we write a song? Let me know what you think.

poem: decision about reciprocity

Hey, here's something of a poem that I started a couple of days ago. Please let me know if you can't figure out what's going on, or if you're generally confused... I think there may be issues with obscurity here that I need to work on. Anyway, I hope everyone's well and is enjoying the summer! Thanks for your feedback!

DECISION ABOUT RECIPROCITY (title also needs work)

What crawls from his lips as vapor dirt,
tinged with scents of sweet salt-water
and rum, dissolves me from this chair--
this desk. I resume myself, half full of breath
and blood, in a spot of sparse straw-grass.
Beside a plastic pail and shovel, my knees
bump under my daisy and red-cotton skirt.
I will shovel my mouth full with dirt,
swallow and scan the tree-stubs
for a woody-chunk.

What looks exactly like white
breast-meat from a bird
fits between my lips.
What pretends to have died
flapping feathers with a song--I chew on.
Chew, chew, chew and swallow. He breathes
for me, so I swallow that wood
of reciprocity. For the seeming insect inching
from his parted lips, I nibble on wood
that once centered around a vein of green.

I gnaw hopelessly for that vein of living green,
while he breathes of masks:
opaque-scented, damp-living. Insects
whose colors adhere to leaves and grass.
What starts from his mouth
encircles me, my bent knees and bucket,
like a thick swarming of gnats--in my mouth,
nose, and ears. Still, he towers over my desk,
and I'm five years old again. He's there
at my desk with his elbows propped up,
a yellowing collar piqued for command;
he presses his fingers forward--as if
against a heap of sand.

It's what will topple at the slightest
nudge. I could swallow again, chewing
what he knows has never flown, nor bled
in red. Or could the wood simply
drop from my mouth: still-white,
wadded, slathered, smiling in spit?

A Writers' Community combined effort

This is a piece produced at a meeting in the early summer, where each of us wrote a paragraph/section of a story and then passed it around to continue's other people's starts. I've offset the parts that different people wrote into separate sections, but it's meant to be read as a whole. Will, Rachel Bowers, Bethany, and I contributed, and we really had fun with this activity. Read, enjoy, and let me know what you think--this is especially for those of you who wanted to be kept abreast of meeting happenings. Forgive the awkward formatting: apparently blogspot doesn't believe in tabs.


* * * * *

“Your silver spoon fell into my oatmeal when you had your back turned,” Mark remarked.
My mother always serves oatmeal when guests come to dine. It’s her way of saying, “Please, do yourself a favor and don’t die like my husband.” I must have picked up the habit of serving it myself, for when Mark told me that I lost my spoon—or, rather, that it had fallen into his bowl—I turned around to face him, realizing that we had been eating oatmeal for every meal since the day we were married.
“Well, what am I supposed to slurp with?” I asked, as I turned to face his shirtless back. I held oven mitts over my hands and gripped a long white spatula that had blackened near the bottom. The sizzling of garlic in the skillet started and I looked at the table. Mark had both of his hands lifted and was gripping the silver spoon that my aunt Melinda gave us as a gift fourteen days ago.

He grinned at me like I was a little girl. “Well, I could wash it off in the sink for you and you could still use it. Or I could grab us a couple of straws and we can both slurp our oatmeal.”
“We might as well eat with our hands.” I mumbled, not in the mood for jokes or his condescending tone.
“Why don’t we?” he said. I ignored him and turned back to the stove.

“Look, the fact of the matter is, your oatmeal is terrible,” said Mark. “I mean really terrible. I didn’t want to say anything, but it’s been two weeks and this stuff is like dishwater with bits of asbestos mixed in for flavor.”
“A simple ‘could we have something else?’ would have been good enough.”
“No, I really don’t think it would have been. You need to understand that this whole oatmeal kick that you’re on is getting ridiculous. Meanwhile, what’s the deal with this spoon? I can’t eat that.”
“It was an accident. I’ll take it out for you. God, you’re such a whiner.”
“I am not a whiner. Look, pasta is just as easy to make as oatmeal, maybe even easier. We could even order a pizza or something. I love pizza.”
“Yeah, well, I love oatmeal.”
“Look, I’m only trying to help you.”
“I don’t want any help.”
“You’re just so clumsy.”

I fought the tears that threatened to well up in my eyes. In theory, I was prepared to come to the realization, thirty years down the road, that my mother had been right all along, but that I would feel it already was entirely unexpected. Of course, Mom’s husband—my father—had died on the tenth day after they were married, so I’d pretty much already outdone her. Thinking about that put me in a better mood, so I went up to Mark and cheerfully put my arm around his shoulders, lightly nipping his ear.
“That’s better,” he said, smiling, and carried me into the bedroom, where we made love three times on the brand new silk sheets his sister had given us as a wedding gift. When we were done, we lay there peacefully, united in our spent passion, until Mark’s body started convulsing, and he collapsed on the floor, clutching his neck. I lay in bed, sadly looking at the ceiling. When it was all over, I picked up the phone and called Mom.
“Finally!” she said, “I expected you to call a few days ago.”
“Well, Mom,” I replied, “I really liked this one, so I lightened up a little on the asbestos in the recipe.”

Tear

Emotion a pool
Wells up
Becomes a lake
Pushes the dam
Raging river
Why is it blocked?
Let it out!
Let it out!
Dam torn down
Burning cheeks
Full release

Post-Hopwood Ruminations

I've just finished finalizing my short fiction entries for the Hopwoods... two stories, 49 pages. Gees. For anyone who's never submitted before, you have to include a pen name, and I really wanted to put some ridiculous one, like Julius T. Finkelbinder or Sprat Z. Swastikallica. Then I thought, maybe the judges would read my silly pen name, scoff, and say, "My, this student couldn't possibly be capable of writing serious lituturature. Indeed!" Or if I did win, would I really want to be acknowledged with a name like G.E. Sausagesphincter? So I caved and settled on Amelia J. Crux.

But someday, someday!

I promise an intelligent post some time in the near future. In the mean time, why not post the goofiest pen name you can think of? Goofy is better than intelligent at 3:37 AM.

Jenny

Complex Contemplations on Continuation

I had a reason, and still do.
There's no changing the past now.
I know.....what I'm doing. Right?
Right. I know.

Something gnaws at my existence today.
It started in my stomach,
migrated to mind with migraine.
metaphysical rationalization indicates
You're the reason.

The answer?
It's there, somewhere.
Somehow I have to decide.

Random thought on the blog

I don't know if this was planned already or what, but I think we should coordinate this with the meetings for those of us that can't make it and we should continue using this into the school year. We can post stuff shared at meetings, and share stuff posted here at meetings, too. I can volunteer to be recorder, or secretary, or whatever, during the year, when I'm around. Tell me what you think.

Untitled Poem

So, I edited the poem. Please comment.

EDITED:
Left foot. Right,
and again. Stop.

In sight,
A flower; Purple.

Lift and view.
Beauty, Fragile.
Pain. from a thorn.

Drop it and see
Purple and Crimson.
Left behind.

Left foot. Right,
and again, again, again,
again, again...


OLD:
Left foot. Right,
and again. Stop.

A flower; Purple.

Pick it up.
Beauty, Fragile.
Pain. A thorn.

Drop the flower.
Purple, Crimson.

Left foot. Right,
and again, again, again...

Sheep

He wakes up today,
his face, covered in a wool.
All the same to him. For too long
he has been living in his damn...
fiction...cloaked reality.
Forgot that this was his way,
his idea to get through that
adolescent witch hunt. Still,
living in that dreaded era.

His sweater that covered his body
now disguises his mind and soul...
His being that still lives
under it all. How I long
to tear that fucking costume!
Free him of the herd!
Pull him out, as if from a womb!
Knowing he's there rips at me!

My friend, come back to me!
Know what I know! You won't,
can't be caught any longer!
They'll praise you, only,
a hero could make it through that,
unscathed, pull your head back out,
now, be that model that we need,
you're out of the cave, now!


It was too hot to sleep so I decided to write instead. Tell me what you think. I kind of want to make it a song...mostly to help the double meaning of the last stanza along. It doesn't make any sense if you leave out punctuation here (try it) but in a song it might work out.

Meeting Today

Hi everyone!

Just a quick reminder that there's a meeting today starting at 6.00 p.m. We'll meet (as usual) on the steps of Angell Hall on state street. If the beautiful weather holds up, we'll sit outdoors on the grass somewhere. The plan is to get some writing done.

I'll see you there!
Manisha

Thoughts on short story writing

So I was talking to my dad the other night about short stories, and how I feel like they all have a similar formula, a list of must-haves to really mean anything. Or at least in all the short stories I've read for my class lately, they've had this much in common:

- they focus on events in a relatively brief chunk of time, a few hours or a few days
- they contain flashbacks that serve to develop characters and fill in the story
- they have interesting, memorable characters
- the characters go somewhere, as in they change
- there is an overall message to be had
- the message is tied into some accessable, concrete means of explaination (what the plot is based around; for example, we read a story about a man who ends up feeling that he can't judge anything anymore, and the story takes place during a little league baseball game where he is the umpire)

So my dad says that it seems easy enough to put all these things together with a bit of work, abd he asks what separates the good short stories from the really great ones? I responded that I think it's just the artistry, the how. And of course not all stories need to have the things above to be successful... which is another piece of evidence for the importance of artistry, raw talent. Sometimes I think it's a matter of simply having it or not. That... and you have to want it. Want to write something phenomenal, and not give up until the writing has done what it wants.

That's where I think I might be at a loss, heh... Perhaps if I could just win a Hopwood and $3,000 or so...

Meeting Today

If you're in the area, come to the meeting this evening. We'll be meeting at the steps of Angell Hall on State street at 6 p.m. and deciding where to go from there. Should be fun!