Volume III, Issue 39
October 27, 2014
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Dear ,
I
am so honored to share WordPlayer Patrice Gopo's essay "Broken Umbrella" with you this week. Now that Patrice is the mom of two beautiful daughters, I don't get to see her as much as I used to, but from the moment I first heard her read her work out loud, I heard the power and truth in her words.
Focusing on the positive is important, and I almost always do. I believe in play, in
delight, in the power of love to transform. And I believe that beauty can be found in brokenness, which is why I took a photo of this particular oyster shell on my last coastal retreat. (Two of them are right around the corner, by the
way.)
But I also know what it is to question whether brokenness can be redeemed, as I do in my poem "Symphony in E Minor: On Wanting the Leaves Off All the Trees" as I question Rilke's words: "Do you not see how everything that happens / keeps on being a
beginning?" by asking But aren’t there beginnings better left / unbegun, griefs that happy endings / won’t redeem?
This is the kind of brokenness that Patrice writes about in her moving, beautiful essay.
It's a brokenness we all understand all too well, seeing the pain and grief that runs rampant in the world. Some days, it breaks our hearts. And is at least some of it irredeemable? It seems that way.
And yet. As writers, there is something we can do: write. Our words can bear witness. Our words can change
hearts. Our words can inspire action. Just as Patrice's do -- I for one move through the world with more attention, more compassion for having read "Broken Umbrella." And you may, too.
Just as your own words on brokenness -- and wholeness -- can bear witness, change hearts, inspire action... So keep writing.
And if you haven't been, start. To borrow a phrase from Oprah, here's "what I know for sure": your words can reveal what beauty can be found in what is broken. Your words can help heal and make whole. Love and light,
Maureen Becky Gould Gibson, author of Heading Home (Winner of the 2013 Lena Shull Book Contest) wrote of " Ten Thousand Cicadas Can’t Be Wrong, my upcoming poetry book that "These exuberant poems find holiness in what we may overlook or refuse to think about too deeply—aging and dying, yes; but also pokeweed, dandelions, stinkbugs, crickets, oak gall, acorns, the
first wild strawberry, a mother ironing—all those ten thousand things that make up “the messy, glorious/ noise that is life." Order your copy for a brief time only for the hugely discounted pre-publication price of $8.50 by clicking on this
link today. Upcoming WordPlay
COASTAL WRITING RETREAT: PROJECT
BOOK
GET YOUR BOOK OUT OF YOU AND INTO THE WORLD (Writing; Publishing Your Book-length Writing Project) A hands-on workshop for any writer who would like to write and/or publish a book and 1) doesn't know how
2) doesn't get around to it
3) feels
a)
intimidated
b) confused
c) overwhelmed
d) uninspired
e) all of the above Full details here. WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, November 14 - Sunday, November 16, 2014. TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at
888.575.1001 or 910.575.1000 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first, then call).
-------------------------------------------------------------- COASTAL WRITING RETREAT Connect with Your Creativity at the Sunset Inn (Writing -- and more -- as Renewal and Inspiration) Full details here. Register now if you want to come: just one spot left!WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, November 7 - Sunday, November 9, 2014. TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888.575.1001 or 910.575.1000 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first). -------------------------------------------------------------- WINTER WRITING RETREAT (Writing — and More — as Renewal / Creating New Writing) Renew and delight yourself. The Winter Writing Retreat is an opportunity to create new pieces of writing and/or new possibilities for our lives. Enjoy various seasonal prompts; they have not failed to elicit beautiful material that can be shaped into essays, poems, stories, or articles. After a communal lunch, you’ll have private time which can be used to collage, work with a piece of writing from the morning, or play
with a number of other writing prompts and methods. You’ll take home new ideas, new drafts, and new possibilities. $97 includes lunch and supplies.WHERE: South Charlotte area. Details will be provided upon registration.
WINTER WRITING RETREAT: Saturday, December 20, 2014,10 am – 5 pm
TO REGISTER: Register online here. Or email info@wordplaynow.com for details on registering via mail.
More WordPlay opportunities here. WordPlay Success Story
"Aside from being filled with wonderful writing information, inspirational prompts and encouraging words, I like to think that Maureen helped me stand on my writing legs. I arrived in her class with wobbly limbs, unsure if what I did counted as writing or even mattered. Maureen's affirmations about my work strengthened those shaky writing legs. She helped give me confidence
to stand tall and believe that I am a writer."
Meet Patrice Gopo
Patrice Gopo, the child of Jamaican immigrants, was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. Her most recent essays have appeared in Sweet, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, Rock & Sling online, and on Charlotte, North Carolina’s NPR Station WFAE 90.7. She is currently writing a group of essays exploring race,
immigration, and identity with occasional diversions into her Alaskan childhood.
What Patrice says about WordPlay
When I moved to Charlotte almost four years ago, I had been writing a little over a year. The words were filling pages of my spiral bound notebook, but I didn't know where to go next or what to do with my work. A Google search landed me at WordPlay's website. I signed up for Maureen's Summer Solstice retreat, then her class on writing micro essays, then her class on writing as a healing process, then her Under
Construction class... Well, you get the idea. Aside from being filled with wonderful writing information, inspirational prompts and encouraging words, I like to think that Maureen helped me stand on my writing legs. I arrived in her class with wobbly limbs, unsure if what I did counted as writing or even mattered. Maureen's affirmations about my work strengthened those shaky writing legs. She helped give me confidence to stand tall and believe that I am a writer. These days with two small girls, I don't take nearly as many classes as I used to, but I still regularly reference Spinning Words Into Gold. I often submit my work for publication, and I am happy to say that I have accumulated a few acceptances woven in with a string of rejections. Of course the acceptances are exciting, but I still revel in the fact that this once wobbly-legged writer feels confident enough to
submit her work. Every time I submit an essay, I celebrate just as I believe Maureen would want me to! Featured Writing
The Broken Umbrella
by
Patrice Gopo
You were standing at the bus stop, your left arm holding a broken umbrella above your head. Streams of water swirled and splashed
around what I imagined were your drenched shoes. The raised arm seemed like some strange rain ritual since the illusion of defense was no competition for the downpour smacking the sidewalk. Your face revealed a withered expression as your head turned anticipating the arrival of the bus. The road snaked ahead of you, empty. At that moment, I think we both realized this road was closed. You
stepped off the sidewalk, crossing the street just as I turned my car, now understanding I needed to make an alternate plan to get my baby girl home. I wanted to stop. I wanted to offer you a ride, but I didn’t. Rules had been embedded in my mind long ago: never, never give a strange man a ride. Never, never. I glanced back at my daughter napping in her
car seat, oblivious to the fog her soft inhales and exhales made on the back window. Her child dreams appeared immune to my momentary conflict about breaking the familiar rules. Watching her chest rise, however, cemented my never, never. As a responsible mother I had to enforce the rules for her sake.
I looked straight past you. I drove away not wanting to glance out
my rear view mirror, trying to avoid the drops of guilt threatening to pelt my mind. However, I knew it was too late, and those guilty feelings already saturated my every thought. With nearly the same conviction I had that the downpour would eventually stop, I also believe it would have been fine to ask. I consider myself to be a good judge of people and life. And yet, not always. So, I left.
Due to the pounding rain and unexpected detour, my journey home took three times as long. The damp, musty scent of water-soaked earth penetrated the shell of my car, while thoughts of you consumed me like rumbles of thunder. I thought about how I couldn’t even offer you a ride in a dry car because of fear; fear planted in my head by well-intentioned and legitimate warnings that held my decisions captive. Instead, I watched you walk away under a
useless umbrella, while I sat inside my locked throne, carrying my useless charity.
I wonder if you were thinking the same thing. If you wanted to ask me for a ride but then remembered the rules of our world where you don’t know me, and I don’t know you and thus we can’t trust each other. I’m sorry. I should have stopped, but I didn’t. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. All I
can offer you are hollow words of apology.
From a woman in a broken society to a man with a broken umbrella.
Want to share Patrice's essay with someone? Forward this email, or send them this link to Patrice's page on the WordPlay website. You can check out other featured WordPlay writers as
well.
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt This is WordPlay -- so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's "broken."
PROMPT:
A tool I call "The Sprawl" is a great one to turn to as a way to explore the writing possibilities of a single word, such as the very evocative "broken." It works like this: - Put the word you want to write about in the middle of a blank sheet of paper. (Today, it's "broken," of course.)
- Moving out from that center, free associate words and phrases for ten minutes, letting one lead to another. If one strand of your Sprawl runs out, come on back to the center and go out in a different direction. You may want to circle your center word, or all your words. You may want to connect your words and phrases with lines. Experiment.
- Look over your Sprawl. Pick the most evocative idea, and start writing, in any genre that suits -- fiction, essay, poetry... Weave in as many or as few of the words and phrases that showed up as you Sprawled as you care to, in any order, and add anything you like.
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MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and two collections of poetry, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn -- and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
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