Musing; About Writing Classes

A couple of years ago, I attended a private, poetry, writing group near my home. We met at my friend’s center on fifteen, wooded acres. The Center has two ponds, and a corral containing llamas, goats, sheep, and miniature horses. They all looked up to greet the workshop members as we parked and walked up the hill to the meeting space.

Nine of us met under the guidance and tutelage of a MFA student working on her degree in a program at a nearby college. She prepared a curriculum for us, but based on a few hours’ work with us, and considering our personalities, age, experience, likes and dislikes, she was willing to adapt and adopt.

She provided a number of handouts that described and included examples of various poetry genres. We enjoyed the selections of poems that she picked for us to read and discuss. After a number of free writing exercises, based on single word cues, we picked single words from a glass jar to assemble the first line of a piece for an exercise. We learned that the Dadaists were the predecessors for the practice that later became known as found poetry. We wrote haiku, sestinas, pantoums, and free verse. Each of us had a favorite form that we clung to, but overall, the experiments forced us to explore new territory in order to find our voice and to polish our writing.

As part of our homework for the next meeting, we were asked to write a contract with ourselves. My contract would include how many hours I would commit to writing each week between workshop meetings and “to write like my parents were dead.” My parents were deceased, but had I written as openly and honestly, and with no inhibitions, when they were alive, I believe I would now be a better writer – at least a writer that was not afraid to embarrass his parents with his published work.

After the third session, we had established a strong bond of trust, allowing us to use vocabulary and images that were personal and capricious. Some rough and risqué words and topics were shared, as well as deep, personal observations or intimate stories about our past or lost loves. We shared, read aloud, took turns making comments about the readings, revised, and then shared our re-writes.

Reading aloud to peers is one of the surest ways to discover your weak areas. A word that doesn’t flow, or a subtle reference that is misunderstood stands up from the page when reading to a group – especially a group that has leaned in closer to hear your words and give your work the attention that is required to make helpful and earnest comments.

Folks quickly find themselves growing close to their workshop mates in a small class, meeting in a private, quiet room in the country. The word that I recall hearing often was resonate…as in “the words resonate with me.” That was one of the highest compliments I received, in addition to the laughter I had hoped to elicit
with some of my sillier pieces.

[This is adapted from a poem I wrote, under a pseudonym, about the workshop experience:]

Nine of us sat around the folding tables, covered with drink stained tablecloths, baring our souls and changing our lives at bit at the end of each line we cautiously shared. For eight weeks drinking green tea and snacking on nuts and homemade puddings, we took our turns growing bolder and bolder. Sally, the owner of the meeting house, a housewife with a runny nose, a chubby caretaker, a retired CEO, a personal caretaker that loved her cat, a large man wearing gray sweatpants, his thin wife filled with the spirit of the Lord; the grim, suspicious moderator with no sense of humor, and me – a middle-aged man with an attitude and a loathing for rules of grammar and authority.

My second memorable workshop was earlier this year. I submitted a couple of pieces and was subsequently invited to participate in a writing workshop with the local college’s artist in residence, Nancy Rawles – a playwright, novelist, and teacher. Of the dozen or so participants, three were teachers and three were artists. The mix of personalities, enthusiasm, talent and area of writing interest was immediately apparent, and as a social experiment, I made an effort to track how the artists and teachers participated and what they produced. I am a retired educator and a practicing artist, so my curiosity guided me and influenced me to pay close attention to my workshop mates that had backgrounds similar to mine.

I dove right in, and contributed my work as we took turns reading our finished pieces and discussing how we felt about it, what prompted our choice of reading or recitation, and what we learned from the finished work.

It is my belief that we learn from the piece. The poem or story “writes us”, and we do not know what it says or what it is about, or what it will teach us until we are finished with it.

The right workshop leader is what makes a workshop a success. A leader that joins in, cajoles, teases, participates, laughs, cries, smiles and hugs makes all the difference.

Several years ago, my on-line writing teacher, Ann Linquist, wrote this in response to one of my assignments. I had mentioned that I was dreaming about my writing. This had scared me a little--as the experience was intense and I was feeling a little out of control, but Ann’s response was comforting and exquisite: “You’re doing all the things writers do—looking, sniffing, touching, noticing, recording, exploring, lying awake, obsessing, planning, feeling great, feeling bad, and following your urge to write about what’s going on. Strange land, but familiar too. Welcome to this new place that has the feel of home.”