How do we step aside and let the story or poem come through us? You don’t have to believe in muses – though Rick Braggs writes that his muse is an ugly old mug who has come to collect due bills, which is the type of muse I can believe in – to believe that sometimes, the best of times, we are the vehicle through which something more than ourselves speaks through. I have written before about how Alice Walker gets to know her characters so well that by the time she is ready to write, she just has to follow them around and take down what they said. She steps out of their way to let them live the story.
Jane Yolen, author of Take Joy – A Writer’s Guide to Loving the Craft, gets to the heart of it when she says, “The writer in the midst of writing, like the penitent in the midst of prayer, finds the self falling away. Or getting out of the way. Only when we slip out of our writer bodies do we truly don the skin of story. We become one with the piece we are creating. In Gordon Dickson’s wonderful phase, we must ‘fall through the words into the story.’
“Sometimes it just happens, that sideslippage. More often, the writer has to work at turning sideways, becoming a mere shadow of authority, to let the story through. As in good prayer, there is victory in that disappearance of self. But, like, prayer, it takes work at first.”
It’s not that the falling away has to be a spiritual experience, and for many writers, it isn’t. But there is a similarity to what some call “being in the zone” or “being completely present.” It’s about letting yourself go be in the moment so intensely that the world around you has disappeared. And that is where the joy of writing also resides. It’s when we aren’t just writing the poem, the tale; it’s the moment we become the prose, the poetry, the moment we wish could go on forever.
Yahoo has been “working” for weeks now on trying to fix the problems we’ve been having with this blog — new subscribers not able to sign up and old subscribers are not being notified. Since Yahoo has not been successful, we are looking at alternatives that may be more helpful. Until then, if you would like to subscribe, please send me your e-mail address, and I will start sending out notifications myself. Send your request to NHatchWoodward@aol.com. Thanks so much, everyone, for your patience.
Next month, I will be the guest of Susan Hickman, Ph.D., on her radio show, Mind of the Matter. It’s available on Voice of America to listen to, at your convenience, starting on May 3.
Have you ever wondered how a writer spends his or her time? Do you think writers are “different” from other folks? Then you will not want to miss this episode with writer Nancy Hatch Woodward. She discusses how writers spend their time, why some people write even when this is not their primary job and gives tips to writers who are just starting out. She also covers practical tips such as how to find the time to write. Whether you are already a writer or wish to write in some capacity, the truth is that EVERYONE has to write in some way – for work, pleasure or just to communicate such as in emails or reports for work. So, check out the show and learn more about…The Writable Life.
The last day of April – National Poetry Month. You are probably ready for some postings on something other than poems – and they are coming – but I hope you have enjoyed the tips, quotations, exercises, and more I have posted this month. And I hope they helped with your writing, whether you spend your time writing poetry or prose.
Here’s the final posting:
I’ve been playing with words and shaping poems in the pages of my journal since I was fourteen. Often it seems I just catch my heart and mind’s dictation and take notes. Other times I let a ginkgo tree, a pearl ring, a sign along the highway speak to me. I’ve learned that in a safe, free setting anyone of any age can gather words, play with language and write poems, sometimes with what poet Anne Waldman calls “goofy profundity.” — Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge, in poemcrazy.
Just because April is over, you don’t have to stop reveling in poetry.
Take a text that uses a vocabulary different from your own – such as a paragraph from a medical, engineering, physics, dance or music journal or magazine or lyrics from a song. Cut the lines up and intercut them with lines of your own. You can use a complete line from the paragraph and then a line of your own, or you can use part of a line that is yours and part from the paragraph. Then try moving them around to see what new meaning and ideas you can generate.
Adapted from Anne Waldman’s “Collaborative ‘Cut-Up,’” in The Practice of Poetry.
This comes from Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff :
There are more people writing poetry than there are readers of poetry. This is a good sign for the world soul, but expectations need to be adjusted. The stage for poetry has to be relocated. If we accept the home and small community gatherings as places for sharing art experiences, creative expression takes on a new potency, in line with its true power to change the world through the aggregate of microscopic acts.
Two poem ideas from Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge’s book poemcrazy. The first one is really a blast if you let yourself go and have fun with it. Feel the rhythm! If you don’t feel like that – go for color: not red, blue, or green; go for crazy colors with crazy names – or make up your own names for them.
Write a poem that’s all sound, a babble of word music, letting vowels echo and consonants repeat, not worrying much about what it means. Savor the sounds.
Next month, I will be the guest of Susan Hickman, Ph.D., on her radio show, Mind of the Matter. It’s available on Voice of America to listen to, at your convenience, starting on May 3.
Have you ever wondered how a writer spends his or her time? Do you think writers are “different” from other folks? Then you will not want to miss this episode with writerNancy Hatch Woodward. She discusses how writers spend their time, why some people write even when this is not their primary job and gives tips to writers who are just starting out. She also covers practical tips such as how to find the time to write. Whether you are already a writer or wish to write in some capacity, the truth is that EVERYONE has to write in some way – for work, pleasure or just to communicate such as in emails or reports for work. So, check out the show and learn more about…The Writable Life.
