Spring Writers' Retreat 2013 with Ian LeTourneau

 

 

 

Spring Writers’ Retreat 2013 with Ian LeTourneau

 

I don’t know what I don’t know about writing poetry.  That’s annoying.  That’s also the way it is. 

Receiving feedback on my poems teaches me how to improve them.  However, one of my challenges in learning anything is this: I am a visual, tactile learner.  Hearing comments is helpful, but seeing them written is better.  Better still is sitting with someone who can tell me how to improve what I’ve written and show me how to change the poem around; show me on paper. Then I “get it.”  I see, I learn.  I can capture the concept in my mind and retain it.

 

The SpringWriters’ Retreat offered by University of New Brunswick provided the opportunities I needed.  In addition to time learning from and socializing with other writers, I submitted ten pages of my writing to share and to be critiqued.  Each of us did.  I read my poems aloud and then made note of the comments on my work, from Ian LeTourneau, the instructor, and from the other writers.  Any feedback given was positive and constructive.  No personal attacks or personality issues were permitted.  After everyone had commented, I had a chance to ask questions or make my own remarks.  We spent all day Saturday rotating turns reading our work and listening and critiquing.

An added bonus for me was receiving written feedback from three writers.  I took these pages home where I could study their suggestions.  These three didn’t make comments and leave it there, they wrote notes explaining to me why something worked well or didn’t work.  Those explanations were gold.

On Sunday, I met one-on-one with Ian LeTourneau to ask questions and to receive advice.  He explained in thoughtful detail a concept I had misunderstood.  He suggested a book for further study.  His feedback was encouraging, yet realistic and truthful.  I left with new lights on in my mind and optimism about my writing journey.

Prior to the retreat, I had received the copies of the other writers’ work.  For two days, I poured over their words, making notes on what worked and why, what wasn’t clear, what made me green with envy, and most challenging, what didn’t work and why.  To my surprise, I learned more from the discipline of having to write why something didn’t work in their submissions, than from making the easier comments on what did and why.

It’s been over a week since I attended the Spring Writers’ Retreat.  I’m still processing what I learned.  I’m grateful to have been in the company of writers for three days, for their casual conversations about their own writing, for their questions and their critiques. 

It was a fine way to learn what I don’t know about my own poetry writing.  

I'd go again in a minute.

 

 

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A Writing Retreat

 

 

Hello again. 

I haven't been blogging as much as usual because I have been preparing to go to the Spring Writers' Retreat offered by the University of New Brunswick.  Each participant has sent in 10 pages of their work, which have been circulated to the other students and the instructor for review and comments prior to the retreat.  I've done lots of writing, reading and note making. 

This week has already given me a couple new opportunities to receive feedback on my poetry: a brief one-on-one meeting with a well-respected writer and editor; and participation in a writers' group meeting.  Both have been rich in advice.

For example, an "expected phrase" or "expected word" means I have used a cliche, like "whirling wind" or "a beautiful day."  These aren't bad words, just not great ways to paint a picture for someone else to see.  Poetry is meant to freshen the world.  "To freshen" means to use words in ways that offer new and different perspectives, on something we see in ordinary ways, or we don't see at all.

I discovered that I need to develop a better reading voice.  I kill my own work by reading it poorly.  I am sharing a story or an experience in a poem;  I am not reading the newspaper out loud.  I read too quickly without stopping to breathe.  This robs a listener of the benefit of the pacing in the piece I've created, and of a chance to process the words.  I am so nervous that I'm choking my words and my poetry.  Others read with a firm and disciplined modulation, with intensity of feeling (though not over done), and with a different timbre from their regular speaking voice.  There is an aura of  "This is important. Listen while I share this experience with you.  This is how I see the world.  Can you see it too?" 

It helps to be told, "This word or phrase or structure does work, or doesn't work" and more importantly, to be told why.  It helps to hear other poetry and to recognize why and how it is working.  It helps to stay away from envy of the poetry written by someone else.  This is a hard bit for me.  I recognize good poetry; I am thrilled and awed by great poetry. I make myself remember that even those writers had to learn, to try, to write bad poetry as well as good in the learning process.

And that's where I am, in a learning process.   

I leave for the Spring Writers' Retreat this afternoon and return on Sunday late in the day, another step on my writing journey.  I am both excited and terrified.  And isn't that the creative combination I need to crack myself open,  to see the world in fresh ways?

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Thank you, Ian LeTourneau

Thank you, Ian LeTourneau

“A poem freshens the world.”  
So wrote the US Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser.

To learn more about how a poem freshens the world and the craft of poetry, I participated in “The Basics of Poetry Writing: How to Transform Ideas into Poems” with instructor Ian LeTourneau.  The daylong workshop was part of the 37^th Annual Maritime Writers’ Workshops sponsored by University of New Brunswick.

The focus was to strengthen skills in the craft of poetry, using metaphor, imagery and the poetic line.  The goal was not to create a masterpiece in one day, but to study and learn more about the basic tools for poetry writing, using explanation, writing exercises, examinations of sample poetry and sharing of our own pieces.  This was indeed what we did.

We seven students and Ian talked; the dialogue shed light on questions about technique and this in turn opened doors and pushed us beyond familiar territories.  We began with warm-up exercises on imagery:

*working like a _________________________________

*cold as _______________________________________

*as unpredictable as_____________________________

*as red as_____________________________________

And as we shared (all of us shared, including Ian), it was helpful to hear how others’ minds worked; it generated creativity.  It helped to learn that the instructor, a published poet, went through the same processes, he was teaching us to use.  Each workshop participant was at the same time dealing with the same technique, and was focusing on the same assignment, so we became interested in and learned from the work of each other.

We examined “My Shoes” by Charles Simic, “X-ray” by Dave Hickey and “Ode to a Stinging Jelly-fish (Portuguese Man-O-War)” by Roger Nash.  We admitted to feeling jealous of their abilities, all the while admiring their poems.

We created enlarged images from our initial warm-up exercises.  Here is mine:

Birth and Death

Dark eyes are red.

She’s just given birth,

a son,

for a husband who

runs around,

and she is raw,

red as fresh road-kill

bleeding out.

We set up our own metaphors, created lists of similarities, noted associations and connections, searched for fresh ways to make our poetry bits and nubs leap to life.  Ian encouraged us to make our images stretch, to do more work, to connect with emotions, to enrich details, to freshen the world.  The lists exploded and we picked a concrete image to begin.

I worked on a metaphor between hand-churning old-fashioned ice-cream and the beginnings and subsequent survival of a couple’s relationship.  It’s a work in progress so I won’t share it here but it has potential and I was content with accomplishing a good start.

The workshop participants shared exercises, beginnings of poems, great lines and shitty lines.  We laughed and we learned.  We talked about titles and how to make them work for our poems.  We talked about line breaks and ways to milk meaning, and yet more meaning from spaces, and ways to still or rush a clause to illuminate with surprises. 

Ian shared this from “Paradise Lost” by John Milton:

Of what he was, what is, and what must be

Worse.

We understood the line break and spacing suggested another meaning.

Our minds stretched through writing exercises, using restrictions.  One assignment was to use the same five words in each stanza of a two stanza poem; the words were plain, light, glass, river, shadow.  Mine follows.

(Untitled)

The river is glass-still

reflects light and shadow,

root to root, stem to stem,

plain and perfect

at full tide.

The tide shifts,

stabs the glass,

ripples spread,

shadows wrinkle,

shake the light.

The river plain begins

to shimmer and dance.

Not good poetry certainly, but you have the idea.

At the end of the day, we shared poems we had brought with us; not an easy thing to do, like giving birth and hearing someone say, “Gosh, that’s an ugly baby.”  It was helpful to listen to the responses and suggestions, to know the others were sharing their thoughts about what worked and what needed tweaking or a complete overhaul.  It was another way to learn.  And my day was all about learning.

The workshop emphasized that writing a poem was a passionate relationship between craft and seriousness of endeavour.  It took place in a crucible, where the wild unfettered mind met the responsible, purposeful self and laboured with fervor and desire, with ability and honest work and created a fresh way in which to perceive our world.

The workshop day was well spent.  My time, my money and my energy were well spent.  I was grateful for the opportunity to work with Ian LeTourneau and to learn from the others.

I hope to learn more next year, hope to attend the full week and follow courses on other genres of writing, on editing, on pitching a story and on publishing.  I hope to get acquainted with other poets and writers and continue to learn new ways to freshen the world through my own writing.

For now… thank you, Laurie Glenn Norris for organizing with the University of New Brunswick, for the Maritime Writers’ Workshops and especially, thank you, Ian LeTourneau, for the gift of yourself.

I’ll see you next year.

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