An update from our fifth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 15, plus some of the output published below “The turn is the most important literary effect since Homer wrote his epics… It is the dramatic and climactic center, the place where the intellectual or emotional release first becomes clear and possible.” -T.S. Eliot “If there is no turn, no transformative moment, then the poem is a journal entry, at best a laundry list of reflections and anecdotes, or what I think of as a ‘litany of relapses’–the barren passage of time unthwarted, moving predictably toward a predictable end.” -Gregory Pardlo For this week’s Writing Workshop, Conner turned our attention towards the multitudinous uses of the “poetic turn.” Building off an earlier talk on “veering,” the class began with a group analysis of the poem”Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” by James Wright. We then defined “the turn,” in its purest form, as the point when “a text breaks its deepest and most characteristic habit.” Next, we turned to one of the shortest stories ever written, “The Dinosaur,” by Augusto Monterroso, noting how the story’s independent clause, “the dinosaur was still there,” constituted a turn from the dependent clause, “When he awoke.” Thus, we learned that turns can even occur within a single sentence. We then turned to one of Kobayashi Issa’s haikus in order to denote how turns can constitute hypocrisy and contradiction. Following our discussion of Issa was a reference to Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, which, in its ending, represented a turn into magical realism away from its prior logic of realism. Our penultimate literary reference was that of Lydia Davis’ short story, “Mown Lawn.” We turned to this story as a depiction of multiple turns within a single space—in fact it was a story made up almost entirely of turns! Finally, as a warm up to our final prompt, we spent a minute trying to write out the last two lines in John Ashberry’s poem, “This Room.” The Challenge: Write a story or a poem that uses a “turn.” For example, this can be a turn like the constant shifting in Lydia Davis’ “Mown Lawn,” Issa’s haiku that had an ironic, imagistic shift, or like the turn in Ashberry’s poem, “This Room,” wherein he turns to address the reader. The Participants: Georgia, Jackson, Lucy, Sophia, Svitra, Liam, Aditi, Emma, Zhilin, Simran, Noa, Julia, Sasha, Sinan, Harine, Isolde, Josh, Sena, Alice, Samantha, Emi Isolde Knowles, 9,(New York, NY) The Bird Isolde Knowles, 9 The bird sat on the branch pruning its feathers. They were brilliant blue like the ocean. A butterfly carefully landed in a flower as its delicate wings beat it down. The beat of a woodpecker could be heard in the distance. A cow moved in a not too distant farmhouse. The bird cocked it’s head hungrily at a trail of ants working their way through the forest, every couple of ants carrying a leaf. A twig cracked under a heavy boot sounding not nearly as sinister as the truth behind it. Swoosh! The bullet struck the tree directly under it. The bird was off its perch and flying into the distance a split second later. The ring of the shotgun seemed to echo out. “Harry,” the hunter’s wife called from inside the cabin. “You’ve already caught us a quail, now leave the poor birds alone.” “Calm down. I can’t seem to catch anything anyways,” the gruff man replied. “There there; you should come inside and get your rest. Do any of your clothes need to be stitched up? I’m going to town to buy some new thread either way.” Aditi Nair, 13, (Midlothian, VA) Abandon Aditi Nair, 13 Bubble. Bubble. She watched her drink bubble. The green clear, plastic container Amazed the little girl. It was so perfect, Yet imperfect. Bubble.
how stories work
How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #4: Dialogue
An update from the fourth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 8, plus some of the output published below This week’s workshop on dialogue was led by the inimitable duo of Stone Soup ’20-21 Intern Anya Geist, 14, and Stone Soup contributor Madeline Nohrnberg, 14. The workshop began with a warm up activity challenging participants to write a scene of dialogue between two characters who hate each other talking about the weather, without ever explicitly saying they hated each other. For the purpose of their lecture, Anya and Madeline focused on various techniques of dialogue, beginning with an excerpt from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest in order to show the technique of conveying lies. The next technique discussed was how to make dialogue seem realistic. Anya and Madeline had participants pick out lines from an excerpt of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders in order to pinpoint instances of realistic dialogue. Following this discussion was an excerpt from The Secret Garden that Madeline used in order to showcase the use of accents in dialogue. The next technique discussed was tone and context. We read an excerpted discussion between Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in which Dumbledore’s playful tone and unwillingness to address McGonagall’s more serious topic of discussion conveyed the complexity of subtext within dialogue. Then, in order to convey emphasis, Anya and Madeline utilized an excerpt from Madeleine L’Engle’s The Moon by Night that used italics in order emphasize specific words. In conclusion, Anya and Madeline summarized their techniques by grouping them into two categories; one, by using tone as in the case of The Importance of Being Earnest and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and, two, by using informal language to make dialogue sound realistic as in the other three examples. As always, at the end of the lecture we wrote! The Challenge: Either as a stand-alone or as part of a larger work, write a scene where the dialogue and exchanges between the characters are expressive. The Participants: (Anya and Madeline) Georgia, Jackson, Lucy, Sophia, Svitra, Liam, Aditi, Emma, Zhilin, Simran, Noa, Julia, Sasha, Sinan, Harine, Isolde, Josh, Sena, Alice, Samantha, Emi Emma Hoff, 9,(Bronx, NY) Practical Advice Emma Hoff, 9 “I drew a good picture today. You wanna see?” I asked. “I heard that if you cut off a chicken’s head, it’ll keep running. That true?” asked Uncle Morris, puffing on a cigarette. “Why are you asking me? And anyways, what does that have to do with art?” “Know it or not?” “I don’t!” “It’s true.” “What’s the point of this?” “The point of this, Robin, is ‘cause I’m trying to tell you that silly pictures don’t matter. Silly pictures won’t make you a living.” “Artists make money.” “Not with silly pictures. Not with silly childish pictures.” “I’m not a grownup yet! I’ll get better as I grow! Anyways, you haven’t even seen the picture!” “It of a chicken?” “NO!” “It of a cow?” “Stop playin’ around, Uncle Morris!” “I ain’t playin’, Robin.” “Then what are you doing?” “I’m here to take care of you, you know that, Robin. Your parents said that if something ever happened to them, I gotta take care of you. Something happened. You’ve been on this farm for months, and you still don’t understand that you gotta be a farmer. Everything else, too dangerous. I want to keep an eye on you. I don’t want you to die like your parents did!” “I’m not going to.” “How do you know?” “I just do. Drawing isn’t dangerous. Loving doing what you love to do isn’t dangerous.” “Robin, let me tell you a story. About your parents.” “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT!” “Have it your way.” “Uncle Morris, don’t you understand? Being a farmer… it might not be dangerous, but no one likes farmers. No one I know, anyways. The kids at school call me Pork, because of how I hang out with the pigs, and draw them.” “Don’t listen to them kids. They don’t know anything. You, however, need to know that you are a farmer, through and through!” “But I’m not! I love animals, but I don’t like butchering them. Heck, I’m a vegetarian! I don’t want to work in fields all day. I want to draw nature, but not harvest it!” “Lazy girl.” “I’m not lazy! I just like drawing! Don’t you understand?” “I don’t. Not at all. But I’ll agree with you… for now.” Sena Pollock, 14,(Madison, WI) Somebody Else’s Sister Sena Pollock, 14 “Come on, we’re going to be late.” “Okay, okay. I’m coming. Just let me finish the chapter.” “No, you can’t. You have to come right now. Otherwise I’ll miss the first part.” “It’s just your stupid dancing rehearsal. It’s not like a job interview or anything.” “It is not stupid. And at least I have the courtesy to not make you late to one of your playdates with your weird friends.” “They aren’t playdates, we just go to the park and hang out. And they aren’t that weird.” “Sounds like a playdate to me. And what do you mean, they aren’t weird? You spend all your time talking about how weird they are.” “That’s different. I mean it in a good way.” “What
How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #3: Lightness
An update from the third Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the Workshop held on Saturday May 1, plus some of the output published below Lightness is a “lightening of language whereby meaning is conveyed through a verbal texture that seems weightless, until the meaning itself takes on the same rarefied consistency.” -Italo Calvino “My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language” -Italo Calvino For this week’s Writing Workshop, Conner first asked us to consider his original lecture of Good vs. Evil (now split in to two parts) as “Lightness vs. Heaviness,” this week’s focus being Lightness. In order to introduce the two modes, Conner offered a primary juxtaposition of Don Quixote and Hamlet Don Quixote being the quintessential example of Lightness, and Hamlet the quintessential example of Heaviness. “Heavy” characters were noted to be brooding, philosophical, intense, opaque, emotionally closed, and characterized as scheming and calculating; on the other hand, “light” characters were noted be agile, quick, cunning, witty, lighthearted, whimsical, emotionally open, and characterized by action. At this point of the lecture we moved into strictly discussing lightness, first focusing on the character of Perseus, who “moves according to the pattern of the wind and clouds” as an embodiment of lightness. Peter Pan and Robin Hood were also discussed as iterations of Perseus. Next, using Milton’s funny and charismatic figure of Satan in Paradise Lost, we discussed how a quote on quote “evil” character could embody lightness, too. Another example of a character embodying lightness was Scheherezade from A Thousand and One Nights, as we noted her ability to think quickly on her feet and tell stories, and the fact that the stories she told were in themselves examples of Lightness—stories about flying carpets, winged horses, genies, magic, love and romance, and about characters like her: witty, smooth, fast talking characters of action. Following our discussion of Lightness in characters, we moved into a discussion of Lightness in painting, music and literature, beginning with three paintings: Magritte’s The Castle of Pyrenees, Malevich’s White on White, and Turner’s Norham Castle, Sunrise. We also listened to Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 21 and Stan Getz’s “The Girl from Ipanema” to set a mood of Lightness. Finally, we discussed the Lightness evident in the haikus of Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa, William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow,” and Gertrude Stein’s poem, “A Dog.” The Challenge: First answer what “lightness” means to you. Write one of the following prompts: 1) Write about a character who exemplifies lightness; 2) Write a story that makes the reader feel “light;” 3) Write a description of a place that uses all the elements of lightness we discussed in class (lighthearted, whimsical, effortless, or emotionally open). The Participants: Emma, Josh, Svitra, Georgia, Liam, Helen, Sophie, Anya, Simran, Jackson, Sena, Sinan, Olivia, Aditi, Lucy, Harine, Isolde, Audrey, Alice, Sasha, Noa, and Julia. Emma Hoff, 9Bronx, NY Fear of Drowning Emma Hoff, 9 I was flying. It felt like I was floating on the water, but this time without sinking in, without coming up coughing and spitting. I didn’t know how to fly, but I didn’t know how to swim either. Flying was easier, though, because when the wind lifted me up, it didn’t feel like a hurricane. It didn’t feel like a menacing and strong wind, because it was lightly tossing me onto the fluffiest air ever, and suddenly I was floating. I was hoping somewhere my family would be floating. And I knew they probably were somewhere, flying, feeling the most comfortable they had ever felt. And as the wind carried me away, I fell asleep. I woke up, and there was no more soft air. I was in the hurricane again, and I was being swirled and tossed, like fruit in a blender. Somehow, I was enjoying it, because while I was floating, a tiny pocket of my brain had been thinking, This isn’t right. This isn’t real. And when I stopped floating, when I just started being tossed around in the hurricane I realized that if the flying wasn’t real, then my family was probably gone. Helpless. Scared. And here I was, unable to help them. And then I was falling. The hurricane tossed me towards the ground and I was sailing down… until I stopped. And I realized I was with the sun. And it was real, even though it seemed like it wasn’t. And the sun said, “Are you lost?” And I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell the sun that I wasn’t lost, that a stupid hurricane had taken me away from my family. But I couldn’t speak. The sun somehow tossed me inside of it, and when I was inside I saw infinite space. And a lot of people. Everyone. My family, my friends, people I didn’t know. And then we were pushed through the other side of the sun, and we seemed to be in our world. I suddenly forgot about the trials of the hurricane, and how I was just tossed into the sun. I didn’t care, because at that moment I was happy. And I felt like I was floating… for real. Isolde Knowles, 9New York, NY 10 Days Isolde Knowles, 9 10 days. That was how long I’d been in heaven. Heaven was just like people thought of it as. The whole area is up in the clouds above all the souls still tethered down there. Yet still I yearn for the sense of unpredictability you have on earth. And now I start to wonder if I’m thinking about this wrong. Maybe that tether that keeps you down there isn’t stopping you but saving you. Heaven is a beautiful hell. Aditi Nair, 13Midlothian, VA Fly Aditi Nair, 13 Bouncing off the white fluffs, she went into the air. Gliding and soaring with the expressionless winds. Gliding
