Day 4 with "the slasher"

On our fourth day of aTi, we had a special guest, poet Renee Ashley. On the previous day, Cat had shown us two poems by Renee.  One poem was early in Renee's career and was a straight narrative piece. The other poem was from a book entitled Her Book of Difficulty; the piece was significantly different from the narrative poem. It was interesting to see these two works because it gave us a scope of Renee's growth and evolution as a writer.

We started our morning session with a fun prompt that involved favorite film stars from childhood, favorite condiment or marital aid, favorite cuss word, and so on. This was just a goofy prompt to start the morning with, but during our later discussion, Renee stated that prompts are good for writers because they break us out of our patterns. As writers, we have an inkling of what our most proficient areas. Maybe it's dialogue or images or figurative language. After awhile, one can get in a writing rut and constantly write similar pieces. Prompts get us out of our comfort zones.

After we read aloud our pieces from the silly prompt, we each read a piece aloud and gave copies to everyone. Cat jokingly called Renee "the slasher," a term of odd endearment with which Renee also agreed. As we read our pieces aloud, Renee, armed with a red pen and green highlighter, made various marks on our poems. She helped us focus on unneccessary words and helped us try to break free from the structure of stanzas. In a small revelation, I looked at a rough draft of a piece and then compared it to my "final" draft. When I typed up the written poem, I compressed all of the stanzas together. However, when the poem was read aloud, the stanzas were still incredibly noticeable. There's nothing "wrong" with having stanzas, but it is important that us writers recognize our patterns. Sometimes patterns turn into crutches on which we rely too heavily.

I chose to read the following poem. I knew it was not a finished piece, but I was hoping to get some guidance on what to next do with the piece.

After I read the poem aloud, Renee asked me how I would critique myself. I was incredibly honest: "I like the images. The ending is cliched. The poem is really just observations and nothing else is really going on. I hate it."

We eventually got into a discussion on the craft of writing. Renee pinpointed the following as tenets of writing:
1. compression
2. image
3. seamlessness

She said that we can't just be "wonderful with words." There needs to be resonance. She also talked about how there should be tension in a poem, where one image has the reader focused, but then another image turns the reader around in a different direction. To show her point, she had us read Cat's poem, "Breathing Underwater." The poem begins innocently enough, with images of Weeki Watchee mermaids doing domestic tasks. The poem then veers into the image of holding one's breath and brings the reader to a dark childhood image. The poem makes the reader feel uncomfortable. After hearing the poem read aloud, I was, in fact, feeling breathless.

As a writer, I know that I have experiences underneath my surface which I can explore. My mother was an alcoholic. My father passed away when I was only 6 years old. Another father figure passed away when I was only 12 years old. I stayed with various friends and family members while my mother attended different rehabs. I just don't think I am ready to face those experiences and write about them. I think that's why I "latch" onto the images.

Like Renee said, there's more to writing than simply being "wonderful with words." Bravery is a component which I am still waiting to find.