An update from our forty-second Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, September 24, plus some of the output published below “A poem does not make sense. A poem excites the senses.” -Nikki Giovanni “Poetry is the sound of language organized in lines” -James Longenbach This week Conner drew our attention to a more micro topic: the poetic line. To begin, we looked at an excerpted page of prose from Anna Karenina—we could see the margins, that prose goes all the way across the page. By contrast, Conner told us, poetry pays little attention to margins. We then paused for a quick exercise wherein Conner gave us a sentence “So much depends on a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens” (William Carlos Williams’s poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” written as prose” — and we each broke up the sentence into poetic lines in order to show how a poem and its meaning changes depending on the breaking of its lines. Continuing the workshop, Conner showed us four important tenets of writing poetry in lines: A poetic line is not a sentence The end of a line is not the end of a sentence A poetic line is a stand-alone unit of meaning Use enjambment (to break a line) to complicate the meaning of your poems With this knowledge, we read from the poems “Prism” by Louise Glück, “The Great Figure” by William Carlos Williams, and “Popcorn-can Cover” by Lorine Niedecker that showcased short lines, and then we read some excerpts of long line poems like “I Hear America Singing” and “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman, “A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsburg, and the opening lines of Homer’s Odyssey. The Challenge: Choose between one of the following, and write in 15 minutes: Look out your window and write a long line poem about what you see Find an interesting object in your room and describe it in great detail in a long line poem Write about Picasso’s Guernica in long lines Then change that poem into a short line poem. The Participants: Emma, Allie, Josh, Russell, Anushka, Aditi, Arjun, Tate, Samantha, Savi, Alice, Robert Guernica Emma Hoff, 10 The glowing lightbulb touching the candle that goes out when it hears the long, loud bray of the horse, we didn’t need it anyway, the people say as they look towards the birds that are praying, their heads jutting in all directions, slowly the ghost comes downstairs into the cramped basement, her head, neck, and hair are the only parts of her that are present until she grabs an arm, a wail, entering the paintings on the walls until the people fall and say, we are the painting! Do not hurt us! the bull slowly grins, leaning against the wall, horns on one side of its head, the ear from the slaughtered pig on the other, someone’s nails – sharp nails, scratching at the walls as what’s left of what was a human being tries to makes its escape, while the legs, quickly running legs are released and the man dog howls at the ray of light that is extinguished quickly, someone breathing on the door as they, too, are swallowed up, the knob left untouched, but why not just enjoy the party? It’s blood, but it’s my blood, and so you learn the joy of ownership as your face turns white and your eye slowly clicks and turns in its socket, and the smoky tail of the bull slowly runs over you, making sure you’re dead before it carefully tramples you, then picks you up and sings to you. Guernica Transformed It’s a body, cradled by wisps of what is left, it’s a ghost, a bull transformed with red, you say hello anyway, you’re just passing by, you’re just cold, it’s misty red, it’s a misty red bull wearing hooves for a coat. More Than Just a Clear Sky Arjun Nair, 10 The glowing clouds jog across the endless sky. Over the trees, over the planes, over the buildings. Giving us some shade from the burning sun. Giving us rain when our flowers are withering. Giving us more than just a clear sky.
how stories work
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #40: Ekphrasis (Revisited)
An update from our fortieth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, June 4 This week, Emma Hoff, 10, led workshop with her own interpretation of ekphrasis, a favorite topic of the Stone Soup workshops. For the workshop portion, Emma presented us with the following three paintings and their accompanying ekphrastic interpretations. The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso — “The Man with the Blue Guitar” by Wallace Stevens. These two are different in that Stevens’ poem speaks of a blue guitar yet the only thing that isn’t blue in Picasso’s painting is the guitar. This is because Stevens speaks of a symbolic blue. Both works express modes/moods of sadness, or blueness. Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder — “Hunters in the Snow” by William Carlos Williams. WCW literally describes the painting, even references the painter. How does his reference of the painter affect the poem? Well, like the painting, which is crammed with details, William Carlos Williams crams his poem with details. House by the Railroad by Edward Hopper — “Edward Hopper and the House by Railroad” by Edward Hirsch. He, like WCW, is incorporating the painter. Hirsch really gets enamored with the painter. He’s kind of antagonistic towards Edward Hopper. After she’d shown us these three paintings and we together came up with interpretations, she asked us to choose between three more paintings in order to write an ekphrastic story/poem. The Challenge: Write an ekphrasis story/poem about either People at the Zoo, The Dream, or The Peasant Wedding The Participants: Emma (presenter), Lina, Anna, Jolene, Josh, Elbert, Fatehbir, Ellie, Samantha, Chelsea, Alice, Advika, Shiva
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #39: Long Sentences
An update from our thirty-ninth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, May 28, plus some of the output published below. This week, Conner lectured on something he never had before: long sentences, which have become in today’s day and age somewhat of a dying art form. To begin, we looked at two paintings: Hieronymus Bosch’s Christ in Limbo, which we found to be dark and disturbing, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Battle Between Carnival and Lent, which we found to be more comedic and prosaic. We then spent five minutes trying to transcribe each of these two hectic paintings, analogous to long sentences, into words. After this short writing exercise, we looked at four examples of long sentences. The first came from Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. We found this sentence to display the speed potential of long sentences by eliminating punctuation and repeating the word “and.” The sentence itself was literally a run-on, enacting the running of the horses. The second sentence came from Don Quixote and was somewhat of an anthesis to McCarthy’s. It was filled with punctuation and interrupted itself, which produced a sense of self-consciousness. The third sentence came from Italian Hours by Henry James, which we were able to synthesize into one sentence: to dwell in a modern city is to live a double life. The sentence was somewhat of a hybrid between the one from All the Pretty Horses and the one from Don Quixote. The fourth and final sentence was from Blood Meridian, also by Cormac McCarthy. We found this sentence to be somehow short and long at the same time, another hybrid. Ultimately this sentence best represented the long sentence’s ability to build upon itself. The Challenge: Write a poem or story in one long sentence. Don’t worry about whether or not your story or poem makes sense. Only concern yourself with how much you can fit into the writing. Make your sentence as long as possible. See what happens. The Participants: Emma, Josh, Ellie, Fatehbir, Shiva, Chelsea, Alice, Zar, Lina, Samantha To watch all of the readings from this workshop, click here. Emma Hoff, 10(Bronx, NY) In the Room of Pharaohs, We Meet Emma Hoff, 10 There were many different countries in the world, and she, he, you, and I knew that, but we would investigate and learn about the world, the universe, the planet, and we would eventually meet in a strange place, the museum, where outside that ominous building the grasses grew tall and had also been sheared short into the gray cement and where there was a fountain, with little gray steps that dared you to climb them, because that was where the little children ran and played in their bathing suits and bare feet; the opening of doors in the night on the other side of the world and the closing of them in the morning stayed in rhythm with the constant laughter emitted by the children, and a couple of businesspeople walked along the streets which matched their prim and perfect suits, but we were not those people, we were from different places and we would all meet in a strange place, the museum, where some briefcases flinched from water droplets and some people bathed in them, where carts selling food wafted their aromas into the faces of innocent passerby and portraits and paintings and photographs created their own museum outside, and smiling faces waited in lines with a few scowling and tired children, or with the happy ones, which scampered around, excited for their turn to climb up the dull-colored steps that led to exotic rooms and echoing chambers and big displays, but we did not have children, we were from different places and we would all meet in a strange place, the museum, and bikes were scary to animals and dogs were scary to daring mountain climbers, and cars skidded along the edges of sidewalks and fences cut you and glared at you, but beyond the fences were trails and flowers and a place to run and dew-soaked hedges and bushes and the crisp air that is humid, warm, and cold, the type you want to walk in forever when you get out of a car, but we did not own any cars, we walked into different places and we would all meet in a strange place, the museum, while looking at Egyptian statues of cats.
