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.

Misfortune Cookies

Prompt: Using Kathy Fagan’s poem “Misfortune Cookies” as a model, crack open your fortune cookie and insert “not” into your fortune. Spend ten minutes exploring this fortune in poetry or prose.

RIP

In this week’s workshop, we laid to rest several words that have long outlived their usefulness. Some died over overuse. Some died of imprecision. Here are a few of our dearly departed:

Wish you were here

Good writing must travel, not just describe. It must take the reader somewhere new. It must take the writer somewhere new.

As an editor for Blood Orange Review, I reject a lot of work from talented writers. They have great characters, great scenes, great descriptions, great dialogue, great images, great technical skill with language. But ultimately, I say no because there’s no change.

How does writing travel? Well, different kinds of writing move in different ways.

Prose: often takes a horizontal journey. You start at point A move to point B. You have a beginning, a middle, an end. Along the way, something changes. Either the characters do or the situation does. Or, you start with the end and move toward the beginning, figuring out along the way how the characters got there. Narrative is like taking a road trip. By the end, you want to be somewhere else or at least hope you have good company for the drive.

Poetry: often takes a vertical journey. Though poetry sometimes tells a story (as fiction does), the direction of the story is vertical rather than horizontal. Take "Papa’s Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, for example. A scene is described, but the choice of words and the complexity of the poem’s structure creates depth to the scene, and the reader moves deeper and deeper into this moment. Rather than the road-trip of narrative, poetry is more like a 40-story elevator ride.

I saw two rhinos do it

The excerpt “My American Childhood” from Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You!) serves as a model for this prompt.

Prompt: Take Colbert’s abstractions at the end of his first memory (faith, family, furry friends, fear of the elderly) and tie one or several of these themes to a specific event in your life, an early memory. Recall smells, tastes, sounds, names, places. This doesn’t need to be funny, but there does need to be some kind of conflict. Don’t just describe the time you lost your tooth. What did losing a tooth mean to you as a child? What did you fear? What did you want to happen? Spend about ten minutes in quiet contemplation before you write.

Documentary: Chalk Talk

Perhaps this situation is best addressed by another poem, written by fellow YAP writer Emma C.:

Chalk art.
Art one moment,
Mud the next.

Haiku Translated

Using symbols from their everyday lives, the YAP writers translated traditional haiku into new work. Some follow the 5-7-5 form, others deviate in favor of mood or tone, but all rely on concise language and vivid images. Inspired by the likes of Basho, Busson, and Issa, here are some of the works that came out of today's class:

Little Timmy running around.
Brown stuff on hands—
poop or chocolate?
~ Jenomi

My breath stains the glass
as I look upon the cold
tormenting the land.
~ Madison

The wind is rushing,
water spraying my face.
The race is on.
~ Sarah

I eat my Cheezits.
Are they naturally orange?
Eat them anyway.
~ Logan

Year after year
thicker lenses. Still
can’t see where I’m going.
~ Stephanie

This is not an exit.
Where does the door lead?
Do you dare try?
~ Heather

I read a book.
Didn’t like it,
gave it away.
~ Jenomi

DO NOT CROSS IT OUT.
Don’t think – Don’t get logical.
Hit the jugular.
~ Logan

Black dog in pursuit.
White gravestones flash by
as it
hunts the ball once more.
~ Simone

Silence does
what silence does,
but how will we ever tell?
~ Emma

A sweet dog
spinning ‘round and ‘round
never tiring.
~ Sarah

Ballet slippers
held in her hand –
what next?
~ Emma

He watches Supersize Me.
Goes out to eat.
Gets a supersize meal.
~ Jenomi

Here is the toad by the lake.
Here is the toad by the lake that eats the fly
and swims away.
~ Heather

Voices fill the stage!
My peers sing many praises
while I check my watch.
~ Emma C-M

It is a war of will.
Horse stubborn and strong vs. me,
and I will win.
~ Heather

We scribble with intent
in collaborative fantasy;
Morgan is an orc.
~ Emma C-M

That old swing set there
What do you mean, it’s broken?
It can fly through space.
~ Simone

It’s summer solstice.
There is food on the table
and in his teeth.
~ Raven

Chalk Talk

Autobiographies in Six Words

The YAP writers took to the Centrum campus yesterday armed with chalk to publish their six-word autobiographies. Though the rain washed most of them away, here they are, saved for posterity:

• For tiny me, the world's large. ~ Emma C.
• Always wanting to do something more. ~ Sarah
• She said, "We could rob banks." ~ Emma C-M
• Just waiting to go to college. ~ Simone
• Must keep head-down to become high-minded. ~ Logan
• Thrown into existence. Now I'm learning. ~ Raven
• The fun has only just begun! ~ Madison
• It was funnier in my head. ~ Heather
• uphill, downhill, home free, yay me ~ Jenomi

Ten Minute Writing Rules by Natalie Goldberg

Why People Read

Why People Read

1) Entertainment
a. Show me something new.
b. Tell me a good story.
c. Surprise me/shock me/impact me.

2) Connection
a. To learn about someone or something else.
b. To learn more about myself and the world I live in.

I asked the students to think of a book they read recently and boil the experience down to one word. Here's what the class said motivated them to read:

• Truth
• Strength
• Broccoli -- you'll have to ask Jenomi for explanation
• Relevance
• Character
• Imagery

Exquisite Corpse: Reality Show Version

In our first session, the YAP writers created two simultaneous exquisite corpse poems. The rules: write about a color without using the name of the color, and don't look at what the writer before you has written. During a rousing competition between red and black, in which no eight-legged creatures were eaten and no one (repeat: NO ONE) fell into a 12-foot trench, red was declared the winner.

Red

She could still see the target on his back through the cross hairs.
The sand wafted, dusty clouds of it pricking his eyes and coating his mouth, the brightness of sunlight shining on the dunes blinding him still more.
The crimson hue -- anger, rage, tormented too; known for valor, known for violence, known for honor, the hated few.
When blood and oxygen collide, look at the hue.
And so Anastasia scalpels, and stitches you went; blood and heart monitors,
As the fire did the glow of the room faded.
As the fire slowly fades crimson can still be seen in the eyes of the fallen, awakening the blood lust that has been lying dormant for too long.
I walked down the disgusting hallway at my school. My best friend tripped over my foot resulting in a bloody mess.
This color makes me feel confident and courageous.

Brand, shiny new writers

Back Row (from left): Emma C., Emma C., Heather, Logan

Front row: Sarah, Madison, Simone, Jenomi, Raven