This is my third year of aTi. For my first year, I completed the poetry workshop with Peter Murphy and stayed at Stockton College. Last year, I took a break from the written arts in order to pursue pottery instruction with Deb Goletz. This year, I decided to get back to my passion of creative writing.
Our workshop is being led by Cat Doty. Cat has always fascinated me since she is also a middle school Language Arts instructor. During the school year, I rarely feel the "fire" to write; those middle schoolers are wonderfully energetic, but sometimes they are also what I refer to as "energy vampires." Each day, after the duration of 6 1/2 hours, those twelve-year olds suck up one's energy and creative impulses----or at least that has been my experience. I give my all to my job, but when I get home, writing poetry is one of the last things on my mind. I wondered how Cat could balance teaching reading and writing (especially in this current age of new teacher evals and PARCC testing) and still create new poetic works.
Besides myself, our workshop includes four other attendees. There's Svea and Susan; they both teach high school creative writing courses in high-performing, competitive schools. There's Lauren, a high school English instructor in Newark. There's also Seema; she said she hasn't taught in "100 years" (her words, not mine), but she has an MFA, energy, and positivity.
We started off the morning by reading several poems: "Boy in Stolen Evening Gown," "Summer Solstice, New York City," "The Dream I Don't Remember," "Mirror," "Did I Miss Anything?," and a piece from Her Book of Difficulty. We spent time discussing line breaks, "turns" in poems (a surprise moment when the poem completely shifts and surprises the reader), contrasts from one stanza to the next, and poets' change in form over time (we specifically discussed Renee Ashley's career).
During the morning we also discussed our previous experiences with workshops. We discussed what exactly makes a poem. We did not come to one finite definition---which is actually how a discussion of that kind should end.
We next did a small activity that would later lead into an afternoon prompt. We were told to write down two "stupid questions" on a sheet of paper. We then read the questions aloud. Before I wrote down my stupid questions, I looked around the room and I thought to myself What if my questions are too stupid? Many times in life, we are our own worst enemies. This could not be any truer than it is with poets and writers. The goal here was to write stupid questions. I think I succeeded with my two choices: 1) What determines an "innie" or "outie" belly button? and 2) Can you flip your eyelids?
Later in the day, I noticed that the aTi Facebook page was filled with photos of day one. The photographs included people sketching and painting on canvas, playing drums, creating marbleized works, completing printmaking work, and molding clay. Our poetry workshop was not included. I do not think this was intentional at all, but I started thinking about how our photographs would look. If a person walked by our little poetry lair (our classroom is tucked away in a secluded spot), she might think we were just a bunch of people casually chatting. Although many of us think of poetry as an independent activity, interaction and discussion helps facilitate a more creative environment.
In the afternoon of day one, we did plenty of writing...
Our workshop is being led by Cat Doty. Cat has always fascinated me since she is also a middle school Language Arts instructor. During the school year, I rarely feel the "fire" to write; those middle schoolers are wonderfully energetic, but sometimes they are also what I refer to as "energy vampires." Each day, after the duration of 6 1/2 hours, those twelve-year olds suck up one's energy and creative impulses----or at least that has been my experience. I give my all to my job, but when I get home, writing poetry is one of the last things on my mind. I wondered how Cat could balance teaching reading and writing (especially in this current age of new teacher evals and PARCC testing) and still create new poetic works.
Besides myself, our workshop includes four other attendees. There's Svea and Susan; they both teach high school creative writing courses in high-performing, competitive schools. There's Lauren, a high school English instructor in Newark. There's also Seema; she said she hasn't taught in "100 years" (her words, not mine), but she has an MFA, energy, and positivity.
We started off the morning by reading several poems: "Boy in Stolen Evening Gown," "Summer Solstice, New York City," "The Dream I Don't Remember," "Mirror," "Did I Miss Anything?," and a piece from Her Book of Difficulty. We spent time discussing line breaks, "turns" in poems (a surprise moment when the poem completely shifts and surprises the reader), contrasts from one stanza to the next, and poets' change in form over time (we specifically discussed Renee Ashley's career).
During the morning we also discussed our previous experiences with workshops. We discussed what exactly makes a poem. We did not come to one finite definition---which is actually how a discussion of that kind should end.
We next did a small activity that would later lead into an afternoon prompt. We were told to write down two "stupid questions" on a sheet of paper. We then read the questions aloud. Before I wrote down my stupid questions, I looked around the room and I thought to myself What if my questions are too stupid? Many times in life, we are our own worst enemies. This could not be any truer than it is with poets and writers. The goal here was to write stupid questions. I think I succeeded with my two choices: 1) What determines an "innie" or "outie" belly button? and 2) Can you flip your eyelids?
Later in the day, I noticed that the aTi Facebook page was filled with photos of day one. The photographs included people sketching and painting on canvas, playing drums, creating marbleized works, completing printmaking work, and molding clay. Our poetry workshop was not included. I do not think this was intentional at all, but I started thinking about how our photographs would look. If a person walked by our little poetry lair (our classroom is tucked away in a secluded spot), she might think we were just a bunch of people casually chatting. Although many of us think of poetry as an independent activity, interaction and discussion helps facilitate a more creative environment.
In the afternoon of day one, we did plenty of writing...
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