An update from our sixteenth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday October 9, plus some of the output published below The purpose of art is not to make sense, but to excite the senses. In an attempt to “liberate ourselves from the demands of semantic coherence,” this week we focused on “nonsense,” allowing ourselves to engage with a more automatic, silly, and playful type of thinking. We began with a poem written by a first grader Conner once taught that went “a poem is/ made by/ a snowman.” Incredible, strange, scintillating. We then took a look at a few of Marcel Duchamp’s strange sculptural artworks—the urinal, the bike wheel on a stool—as examples of nonsense. Another example of visual art, and one of our most common points of reference, were a series of paintings by Magritte, all of which made us feel as though we didn’t need to understand them, we merely needed to experience them. Next, we moved into literary examples, beginning with “Your Car is Thar” (ungrammatical) by Charles Bernstein and two poems by Edward Lear—”There was an Old Man on the Border” & “There was an Old Man with a Beard,” both of which were grammatically correct, but literally nonsensical. Then, we looked at two examples of nonsense by Russian poets: one untitled poem by Vladimir Khlebnikov, whose playful nonsense was similar to Bernstein’s “Your Car is Thar,” and “An Encounter” by Daniil Kharms, whose dry, matter of fact nonsense made us all laugh. To finish the workshop, we listened to Benedict Cumberbatch’s reading of “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll, perhaps the most famous example of nonsense in literature. The Challenge: Two Prompts: Prompt one: In five minutes, write the worst possible poem you can think of. Prompt two: Simply, write a nonsense poem or story. If you get stuck, just start rhyming nonsense like in Lewis Carrol’s “The Jabberwocky”. The Participants: Audrey, Clara, Simran, Josh, Emma, Lina, Nova, Penny, Ethan, Shilla, Ellie, Olivia, Svitra, Sinan Svitra Rajkumar, 13(Fremont, CA) Terracotta Svitra Rajkumar, 13 Terra flipped through the pages of her English textbook, reading bits and pieces, but her mind was elsewhere. She was busy thinking about the meeting she would have to host later in the evening. Her little sister’s friend was having a birthday party tomorrow and she had agreed to do face painting for the kids, but now she wishes she didn’t. She leaned back on the couch and yawned. Her other friends were going to the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory in San Francisco tomorrow, and she couldn’t come because of some stupid party for seven year olds. Maybe there was a way she could sneak into their car and go without her parents knowing. Her Mom had recently been diving deeper into her old hobby, pottery, so she would be busy. When she was pregnant with Terra, she was obsessed with pottery and sculpting, which is why she named her daughter Terracotta. Ugh I can’t believe I was named after a type of clay Terra shut her English book and decided to get something to eat away her pain. Maybe she was being a tiny bit dramatic. She opened up the fridge and grabbed some instant noodles that she decided would be her dinner. As usual her Mom was still at the nearby art studio working on a new plate set so she would be home late. This gave Terra a large amount of time to plan for tomorrow. She began to heat up some water and had an idea.
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #17: The Body
An update from our seventeenth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday October 16, plus some of the output published below This week we pivoted to discussing more concrete individual themes—in this case “the body” in four distinct forms: the monstrous body, the transformed body, the body in pain, and the body in motion. We began with the monstrous body, looking at various depictions—Paul Rubens’ Medusa, Joos Van Crassbeack’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Prometheus—of its form in art. We found that depictions of the monstrous body were often exaggerated as in the main subject of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, a giant’s head. Next, we discussed the transformed body, as depicted in artistic portrayals of the myths of Apollo and Daphne, as well as that of Narcissus and Echo. Then, we discussed the body in pain, as brilliantly shown in Picasso’s anti-war painting, Guernica, which in turn inspired Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. From additional examples ranging from Tumor a la Muerte by Goya to Frida Kahlo’s Without Hope, we discerned that the body in pain is often distorted, twisted. Finally, we discussed the body in motion, with Magritte’s The Blank Signature and Gertrude Stein’s prose poems—”A Long Dress” and “A Blue Coat”—serving as the primary examples. The Challenge: Write a story/poem about the body. Focus more on what happens to/inside the body than what happens around the body. The Participants: Simran, Alice, Sinan, Emma, Lina, Olivia, Audrey, Ellie, Ethan, Josh, Shilla, Svitra, Emma Hoff, 9(Bronx, NY) Stories Emma Hoff, 9 The dark, we are celebrating everything, we are stretching and writhing and becoming. People dot their i’s with hearts but we do not work this way. We are standing tall and speaking, saying, “we walk the Earth right with you, and if you do not appreciate colors, appreciate us.” We can make your life hell. We tell you hello, but what we really want to say is goodbye, we would like to fly away, we could own bat wings but we have no allowance. We scratch ourselves, and you scratch yourself, we have forgotten to reach out of your mouth, your ear, and sprayed mosquito repellent on us. This is how you began to believe that mosquito repellent doesn’t work. We tell you stories and we dance to our voices. We tell ourselves stories, we touched the world, and the world touched us back. The rest of the story goes onIt needs courage to build a school ! to explain how we will dominate, take over. I tell this story with such rich description. I am vivid in my movements, just like you. Svitra Rajkumar, 13(Fremont, CA) Window Cleaning Svitra Rajkumar, 13 Where is the building? It’s so tall, it shouldn’t be that hard to find I looked up to see a tall apartment looking down at me. They can’t be serious I wanted a job quickly, but they wouldn’t give a new cleaner something this tough, right? A grumpy looking man sat inside the building. He had an untended beard, and looked as if he hadn’t had his morning coffee. Or maybe he had too many. “Here, start immediately, you can have a break in an hour-thirty,” he commanded in a gruff voice. He turned his eyes back to the glowing screen, which was making strange sounds. I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see he was playing a video game. Ugh. He expects me to clean a fifty foot tall apartment while he plays games? “Well what are you waiting for?” He grumbled. Sheesh! I walked outside to find a tiny spray bottle and a cleaning rag. This is all they give me to clean all these windows? If I wasn’t getting paid I wouldn’t have come. The spray reeked of a lemony clean scent, and the rag wouldn’t last five minutes in the sweltering heat. I could die out here from dehydration. People working on the great wall of China died due to the heat. No one would come looking at the top of the building to find me. Much less the grumpy, video game guy. I started to climb the metal ladder, which felt slippery against my sweaty hands. I reached the first window. And started spraying the lemon cleaner. I wiped the rag furiously, trying to complete the job quicker. It didn’t matter anyways; there were around thirty more windows left. For such a big building, why didn’t they hire someone more experienced? They’re probably cheapskates.
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #15: Veering
An update from our fifteenth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday October 2, plus some of the output published below For today’s Writing Workshop, Conner decided to tweak an old lecture on veering and give it a new spin. To begin, Conner had us choose an object—any object—from the room we were in to write about later. The core concept with which we began the workshop was that “veering” should be seen as a break in the pattern, as any sort of change in direction, a thing we understood to be aesthetically pleasing. To enforce this concept of veering, we looked at a few examples, the first of which being the “I am your father” plot twist from Star Wars and the second being Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. We also looked at examples of narrative veering in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Harry Potter, and The Sword and the Stone. Then, for an example in visual art, we looked at Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. From there, we reinforced the idea that “veering” represents the moment in which a story or poem breaks its most characteristic habit through a reading of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets whose final line completely changed its trajectory. We also looked at the poem “I Know a Man” by Robert Creeley, two haikus by Basho, and examples from Ovid’s Metamorphosis. The Challenge: Write a poem or story that veers off its intended path. Change direction. Change your mind. And use the object that you chose at the beginning of class. The Participants: Clara, Josh, Emma, Lina, Ellie, Simran, Ethan, Alice, Audrey, Shilla, Olivia, Nova, Svitra Emma Hoff, 9(Bronx, NY) Or Rather, the Shape Emma Hoff, 9 Or rather, it was the shape that interested me the most, spin like a top, no, trap it, the base is on the other side. You must understand, dear reader, that there was something that curved (that curved!) in unnatural ways. The black was only a shield, a protector of the young and old, the little. The big were never protected. They had feet. We look inside and we wonder, how do we eat out of this? How do we put food in this and stain it and put it in the dishwasher and torture it, when it was truly meant to be held, not breaking the shield, but held nonetheless, and the patterns and colors make you want to touch cool. I think it is rather beautiful. You touch, you are hot, and it makes a sound. Ring is the sound. But this does not interest me. There is something else that interests me. Or rather, the shape. Ethan Zhang, 9 (McLean, VA) Two Poems Ethan Zhang, 9 The Sound of the Wind I was holding it, An ocarina, An ancient Chinese Instrument. Suddenly It was gone Vanished Replaced magically With a French Horn. Unreal Unrealistic Yet I believed the magic Until The waking Sound of the wind. A Rosy Carpet Outside my window A rosy carpet hovered. It was unreal Absurd And even insane Was what I told Myself. Yet I was convinced It was anything But a fantasy. Carefully I stepped on it Into the misty clouds I rose. The wind brushed my face And I flew, high, high Up and over The steely house The buzzing town