Last Words

“If you persist in preventing me from reading poetry I am going to turn you into a flat-headed serpent.” – Antonin Artaud

Death or Mumba?

We were warned at the beginning of this camp of 12 foot drops. Well, we fell in anyway, at least metaphorically. And now we’re crawling out of the pit, in the words of Jennifer Michael Hecht, “seriously rearranged.”

Students, when given the choice between death and Mumba, you know now which one to pick. Oh, the mumbacity of it all! Safe travels home …

Final Presentation

Below are pictures and excerpts from the students’ final presentation at Centrum’s High School Summer Arts Camp.

Emma reads her short prose piece “Young Equations”
“She will never find the value of her own lovely variables now.”

Simone reads from her poem “Miss Fortune”
“Who’s the dog now?”





















Sarah reads from her short fiction story “Stuck in Time”
“I felt so small yet powerful for being able to choose my own path.”





















Emma C. reads from her poem “Esperanza”
“I can let Esperanza be as
Esperanza wants to be.”





















Raven performs his poem “Vibrations.”
“I’m on a quest to find myself until my molecules rot.”

















Heather reads from her prose piece “Reflections”
"The lake was like a Venus fly trap waiting for prey."





















Jenomi reads from her poem “All Alone”
“I must get out of this small, small place.
I will not put myself out by their rope.”





















Logan reads from his poetic narrative “Out Like a Lamb”
“From the mouth of the lion-tamer, vicious laughter leaps.”

Madison reads from "The Boots."

"I envied the mountain because unlike me it was able to stand alone."

Submission & Rejection

1. Write something amazing.
2. Put the work aside for a week or more. Read it later and see if you still like it.
3. Have someone else read the work. Revise.
4. Save your work under its current title and date. For example, “the_raven0609”.
5. Locate at least 10 target publications for your work: see New Pages.com.
6. Look for local publications (peruse the magazine rack of your local bookstore)
7. Look in the Contributors sections of literary journals to see where writers you like are being published.
8. Look in the acknowledgments pages of first books of writers you admire to see where they were first published.
9. Examine the publication. Make sure you like what they publish and how they publish it.
10. Review the submission guidelines of the publication. They should be selective but respectful and clearly state how they want to receive your work.
11. Bookmark the submission guidelines or print them off and save them in a folder.
12. Write a cover letter (if required by the submission guidelines). Keep it short and professional. Do not apologize for not having prior publication credits. Instead say: “I am a writer who lives in Dallas, Texas, and am seeking publication for my work.”
13. Create a document to record your submissions that contains the following:
    
    Publication / Title of Work (include document name) / Date Sent / Response Received
    
    This may also be a good place to include the following information:
    
    Accepts simultaneous submissions? / Response time / Publication contact information
    
14. Prepare your manuscript according to the submission guidelines:
    If online: either submit by an electronic form or send an email. If they ask for no attachments, don’t send attachments.
    If by mail: enclose an SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope). Make sure you provide contact information in the appropriate place on your submission.
15. While you wait, keep writing, keep reading, and make a list of new places you’d like to submit.
16. When you receive a response, record it in your tracking document right away.
17. Resist the urge to write a nasty letter to the editor.
18. Read your work again, and see if there are any places to improve.
19. If you received a personal note from the editor, send a new work immediately.
20. Even if you receive a form rejection from a publication, do not give up on the publication if you would like to see your work published there. Keep trying.
21. Advice: most writers take about three years to learn the art of submitting and to find publications that fit their style. Start now!
    

“I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, ‘To hell with you.’” – Writer Saul Bellow

Visit to Copper Canyon Press

Today the creative writing class visited Copper Canyon Press, one of the premier poetry publishers in the country. And lucky for us, the press was just steps away from our classroom door.

There we met Joseph Bednarik, who gave us an overview of how the press selects books and the creative transformation from manuscript to bookstore inhabitant, complete with cover art, the perfectly selected typeface, and flawless copy.

The press publishes on average 18 books a year. Yearly, about 2,500 to 3,000 poetry books are published in the United States, Joseph explained. The students were able to take a look at a manuscript in process with editorial notes between the poet and copy editor as they collectively shape the book into its final form.

The students walked away with souvenir buttons – the press’s logo that combines the Chinese characters “word” and “temple.” Also, they left with copies of the press’ catalogue, essentially an anthology that includes poems from the fifty most recent titles.

Aristotle’s Poetics

Aristotle is an old guy who had a lot of good ideas about writing that still apply today. One thing I find useful is his categories of poetry. What he says about poetry I believe applies to all kind of writing and can serve as a useful box to help us think about making improvements to our writing. If we can identify a piece of writing by its category, then we can talk about how closely it meets the expectations of the reader in this category and what changes can be made to help the work more fully embody what it is trying to accomplish.

A piece of writing can tell a story (narrative), sing a song (lyric), or enact a moment of tension (dramatic). Each structure has its own requirements:

Narrative: the story must have a beginning, middle, and end; it must chronicle events that occur in time and space; the story must involve action and consequences of action. Short-hand: tell a story

Lyric: writing that uses tight, compressed, charged language in order to convey the intense emotion within a single moment. Unlike a narrative that travels linearly through time and space, a lyric delves into a moment and goes deep into the musicality of language (alliteration, internal rhyme, rhyme, etc.) in order to express it. Short-hand: make meaningful music with words

Dramatic: involves enactment of struggle between two forces; the tension of staying in one place is what creates energy. There are usually two characters of equal power struggling in some way. Short-hand: show a struggle

***

In workshop: We do a “stranger” read first, in which someone unfamiliar with the work reads the piece of writing. Then the writer reads his or her work. Along the way, students should pay attention to where both readers stumble, misread, pause, or invert the words on the page. Once the readings are complete, we begin by describing what is happening. This can be insightful for the writer, especially if the entire class has misunderstood one or more parts in the work. Then, we move to categorizing the piece under narrative, lyric, or dramatic. Most writing will be a combination of two or more, but our goal is to identify the dominant impulse in the work. Once that has been decided, we talk about what parts of the work fulfill the expectations of that category and what parts can be enhanced to meet those expectations. After this, the writer is allowed to speak and share his or her intent. The workshop works together to help the writer realize his or her intended purpose.

Babies? Yum!

The students read Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” many for the first time. Afterwards, we discussed satire, defined as wit founded on send of grotesque or absurd. Satire is useful because it can point out what’s wrong, thereby making a path for a possible solution. Some of its elements are hyperbole, understatement, irony, and stock type.

Prompt: Using “A Modest Proposal” as your model, create a satirical cartoon in three parts in which you introduce a problem, proposal a solution, and show the outcome using the elements of satire discussed in class.