Writing Workshop

How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #18: Monster Poetry

An update from our eighteenth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday October 23, plus some of the output published below In anticipation for Halloween next week, and in conjunction with last week’s partial focus on the “monstrous body,” this week we focused on the neglected art form of short poems about monsters. Thus, we looked at exclusively literary examples, beginning with “Monsters” by Dorothea Lasky, which offered a change in the typical point of view. We then read a host of other poems ranging from “A Boat” by Richard Brautigan to “A Monster Owl” by Lorine Niedecker to “Theme in Yellow” by Carl Sandberg to “All Hallows” by Louise Glück to “And the Ghosts” by Graham Foust—a haunting one line poem. We finished with a close reading of William Blake’s famous poem, “The Tyger”. The Challenge: Two Parts. Part one: in fifteen minutes, write a monster poem. Part two: change the poem line by line by writing each line’s exact opposite. The Participants: Emma, Clara, Josh, Simran, Nova, Lina, Ellie, Audrey, Alice, Olivia, Shilla, Svitra Emma Hoff, 9(Bronx, NY) Monsters (original) Emma Hoff, 9 Some things crawl, asking for the mirror, something to break, smiling at us, rosy pink cheeks. Little cherubs are us, winged creatures, flying through the air, we flap our wings and kiss the other wings. Other things are obstacles, they braided my hair, I braided theirs, walking and walking along, tiredly, as if we had just risen. Along the path are scissors, so many combs and brushes, they rip my hair like a rope, like a cord. I took a step away, eyes blank, never colored in a book. Little children haunt me always, little birds, flitting around with wings of steel and iron, we call them machines. Ten days later you wake, asking others where you were, they tell you that they were in Hawaii and did not creep into your space. I begin to get wet, other forces are getting together, drying themselves, while I, I am under a mushroom, bigger than myself (I am an ant) and I wished I was sleeping like you. I dream of deserts, you dream of snow, everyone has a rainbow entering through a special door. Nobody ever actually becomes an actor. They have to wait for others to come, to say their words, I talked to them and they invaded me. Monsters (flipped) Things don’t crawl, they don’t want the mirror, they do not shatter, do not smile, their faces are pale with no color. We know nothing about cherubs, falling, wingless creatures, we have no wings to flap, we do not find the other wings. No obstacles in our way, and we never braid each other’s hair, we are lazy, we never walk, we always sleep. No scissors along our path, no combs, no brushes, my hair remains pristine, never ripped or pulled. I never had to take a step away, eyes were always full, colored, perfectly colored. I love little children, birds are gigantic, they do not flit around on wings, they do not work mechanically. You never wake, you never ask where you have gone, the others never go anywhere either. I am dry, I am alone, and everything is normal, I was sleeping, wished I was running. We do not dream of anything, no light, no color, can enter through our special doors. Everyone can act. We do not have to wait, do not have to talk, or listen, I left unscathed and healthy.

How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #16: Nonsense

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.