An update from our forty-ninth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, November 12, plus some of the output published below “A poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.” -Jean Cocteau “I pulled a chicken’s foot from behind the moon.” Federico García Lorca For this week’s workshop, Conner taught us the form of the sonnet, focusing on the importance of sound. To begin, he provided us with a vocabulary for literary sound: Exact rhyme: a classical rhyme in which the endings of words sound exactly the same. Slant (off/half) rhyme: a rhyme in which the ending consonants match, however the preceding vowel sounds do not match. Could also just be words that sound similar. Assonance: when you have a repeating vowel sound in two words. “summer” and “fun.” Consonance: when you have similar consonant sounds anywhere in the word. Alliteration: the same letter or sounds at the beginning of words that appear close together Once we had a vocabulary of sound to work with, we discussed the rules of the sonnet: 14 lines Close attention to sounds, especially the end-words of each line has a volta, or a turn, often in the 8th, 10th, or 14th line We then read four sonnets: “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin” by Terrance Hayes. “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins “Fairy-tale Logic” by A.E. Stallings “Sonnets to Morpheus [“I know kung fu”]” by John Beer The Challenge: Write your own sonnet! It should be titled “Self Portrait.” It should be 14 lines, have a volta in either the 8th, 1oth, or 14th line, and follow some sort of rhyming pattern. The Participants: Emma, Savi, Aditi, Arjun, Robert, Anna, Zar, Tate, Josh, Ella, Alice, Benedetta, Allie Self Portrait Zar Pavri, 12 With a new day comes new tasks,Challenges all greater than the last,Times when you must put on a mask,Times when you must sit back and relax,Times when you must watch your back,Times when you must let them attack,Times when you must win them back,Times when you must take a step back. And in all these there comes a time too,To return to your home and start anew.It has been a long day and you are through,Let the remaining hours wash over you.Tomorrow has things for you to do,Today you must prepare for your debut.
Writing Workshop
Writing Workshop #73: Literary Dialogue
An update from our seventy-third Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, November 5 Today’s workshop called for the writers to pull from their own bookshelves and study the ins and outs of literary dialogue. The participants were asked to share out especially inspiring scenes of dialogue from their favorite books and identify why this dialogue was employed by the author. Examples included Keepers of the Lost City by Shannon Messenger and Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. We then reviewed a side-by-side comparison of the same scene from Harry Potter in both script and prose form in order to learn about the powers of subtext and providing background information in an engaging way. With these concepts in mind, the students entered into a five-minute write, in which they were challenged to recreate this scene from Harry Potter using only omniscient third-person narration. After time was up, Katelyn shared her impressive work. The writers then studied a number of examples of dialogue and characterization from classic literature and opera, including Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend and Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. In these works we observed the power of spoken dialogue over simple narration in certain situations. We then sent the writers into their 30-minute writing period with efficient, character-based dialogue in mind. The day’s readers included Greta, Yueling, Katelyn, Kristen, Crystal, and Nova. The Challenge: Write a story or poem incorporating effective, sophisticated dialogue between two or more characters. The Participants: Anya, Ava, Celia, Crystal, Greta, Katelyn, Kristen, Nova, Pearl, Reethi, Yueling
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #48: Prose Poetry
An update from our forty-eighth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, November 5, plus some of the output published below For this week’s workshop, we focused on prose poetry, which we defined as a prose composition that demonstrates the logic and characteristics common to poetry. The first thing we did was a favorite exercise of Conner’s: he asked that we try and write a “bad” poem. After the exercise, we read “On the Train” by Lydia Davis, “The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter” by Mark Strand, “I Am the Last” by Charles Simic, “Man with Red Hair” by Daniil Kharms, and “Information” by David Ignatow. All of these prose poems we characterized as feeling like excerpts from larger stories, or the beginning of a short story—they felt like they should keep going. The Challenge: Write a prose poem. If you feel stuck, write a story that feels like its an excerpt from a larger story but isn’t. Or you could write the beginning of a short story but cut it off before it really starts going. Or, take the “bad” poem from the beginning of workshop and turn it into a longer prose poem. The Participants: Allie, Emma, Anushka, Benedetta, Arjun, Tate, Robert, Aditi, Russell, Ella, Samantha, Alice, Josh, Anna, Savi Open House & Untitled Emma Hoff, 10 Open House An old photo, containing a memory. Aww, they say, beholding it. One day, it’s gone. They move on to another photo. Aww, they say again. It goes on like this, and, eventually, only the abstract painting is left. They study it. There’s silence. They hesitate. And then they say, aww. You dump salt on their heads as they walk into the kitchen and pet the frying pan. Everything is gone. The house is just a hollow box that you sit in. There are no walls, but you are enclosed by something. More and more of them come in. Aww, they say, patting your head. Untitled I’m watching the man in the corner, sipping tea that I made for him. He doesn’t remember. He’s too busy watching it, and I don’t want to tell him who he really is – I’m also afraid. Every noise startles me, and I feel like I want to go back inside. It’s cold. The door is locked. I know he won’t hear me knock. I sit down on the steps, and suddenly, in front of me, there’s a pineapple. On one side of my head is a star, and on the other side is a bird. The Thing is gone. It didn’t really mean anything anyway. It was just a plot twist.
