Volume III, Issue 43
November 24, 2014
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Word of the Week: startle
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Here I am at this past weekend's North Carolina Writers Network Fall Conference with North Carolina's most recent poet laureate, Joseph Bathanti. I was so glad to be able to thank him in person for writing a blurb for my upcoming
book, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong -- I am started and astonished at his wonderful words! (Speaking of, this is your last week to order it at the pre-publication sale price. It's going to press next week -- yay! Dear ,
When was the last time you were truly startled? We often associate this word with being frightened or alarmed, but I'm referring here to that jolt that comes with being awakened, astonished, amazed. It's all too easy to move through our lives with complacence, a lack of true awareness for the beauty, the comfort, the compassion, the opportunity -- and so much more grace and goodness -- that surrounds us.
One
of the greatest gifts writing gives us is a habit of paying attention to the minute details, allowing them to startle us. As writers, one could say our very job is to allow ourselves to be startled into seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, feeling; to take on this stance in these lines from Pattiann Rogers's poem "Till My
Teeth Rattle":
Who ever said the ordinary, the mundane the commonplace? Show them to me.
Pattiann Rogers was one of the writers who taught me the value of being open to being startled awake, and also the value of seeking to ask eye- and
soul-opening questions. Her poem "The Greatest Grandeur" was written to explore what I think is a mighty fine one: "What is the greatest gift that we are given?"
I often use "The Greatest Grandeur" as a prompt in my
classes, and this week's featured WordPlayer, Frederike Gravenstein, used it to capture a beautifully arresting moment of being startled awake. You can read it below, along with a prompt that I hope will give you a "startled awake" moment of your own.
May you have a startlingly wonderful Thanksgiving week!
Love and light,
Maureen Joseph Bathanti, former poet laureate of North Carolina and author of numerous books of poetry and prose wrote: "A literal chorus
emanates from Ten Thousand Cicadas Can’t Be Wrong, Maureen Ryan Griffin’s New and Selected Poems, in language that is wonderfully, compulsively precise. Griffin inspects and catalogues the grand and the infinitesimal as through a jeweler’s loupe – parsing, quantifying, enumerating and especially illuminating. There’s not a jot of tedium involved in the tally – for the poet or for the reader – but rather a joy born of the sheer expanse of the world Griffin claims not merely for herself,
but returns to us transformed. This is a magnanimous, glowing volume." This is the last week to order your copy for the hugely discounted pre-publication price of $8.50 by clicking on this link. Upcoming WordPlay
LOOKING AHEAD TO CHRISTMAS? HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO PLAY SANTA (OR GET SOMEONE WHO LOVES YOU TO) AND TREAT YOURSELF TO A CLASS WITH ME AT THE BEAUTIFUL JOHN CAMPBELL FOLK SCHOOL IN 2015!
SPINNING WORDS INTO GOLD
(Fulfilling Writing Dreams and Goals; Creating New Writing; Revising and Polishing Your Writing)
Does writing fulfill you? Do you wish you were writing more? Jumpstart your writing life and learn to keep your words flowing. Learn
specific techniques and exercises to create nonfiction, poetry and/or fiction. Whether you would like to keep a journal for your own personal growth, spin stories for your loved ones, or further a career as a professional writer, experience the satisfaction of developing a writing practice that works for you—come spin words into gold. $594 for one week-long session, plus lodging
and meals. WHERE: John Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Road, Brasstown, NC 28902
WHEN: Sunday, September 13 through Saturday, September 19, 2015
TO REGISTER: Call the John Campbell Folks School at 1-800.FOLK.SCH (365-5724).
For more information, click here to visit the WordPlay website.
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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
"...a class with Maureen is a safe, inspirational, and knowledge-gathering place to begin (or enhance) the practice of a craft that is an intimate pursuit."
Meet Frederike Gravenstein
Frederike Gravenstein lives in the mountains of western North Carolina with her partner of 26 years, two dogs and an elderly cat. She is happily surrounded by nature, and 45 minutes
from everything else. In 2013, burnout, an ailing mother, and a desire to rediscover her own creative impulses lead to semi-retirement from 30 years as designer/animator/director in the broadcast industry.
What Frederike says about
WordPlay
I love typography. Letters make words. A graphic designer is given words whose meaning is enhanced through font, color and composition in relationship to imagery and time. Writers use those same elements but must find the words inside themselves to express intimate meaning. I can’t write, or so I believed until I met Maureen at the John C.
Campbell Folk School.
Being semi-retired and having time to explore the many avenues of creative expression, I perused the JCCFS course catalog. Slowly sliding my finger down the alphabet touching Blacksmithing, Enameling, Mosaics, Painting, Pottery, Woodcarving, I stopped at Writing: “Writing Like a Genius” – Maureen Ryan Griffin. I secretly wanted to be a writer to tell my story. I studied the description and the last line, “All levels Welcome” offered enough
safety that with the tap of my finger a decision was made.
I came into class open to the experience, but afraid of failure. I feared my words could not be strung together well enough to be meaningful or interesting. After six days I returned home and haven’t stopped writing since. I write to keep the words spilling onto the page because I like the way it feels. I like the scribble of letters, hand written or mechanically printed for the texture they add to a white
surface. Pencil or pen, it does not matter. The graphic effect of a letter is what I used to create; now I create the meaning behind it. Not because I became a writer, but because a class with Maureen is a safe, inspirational, and knowledge-gathering place to begin (or enhance) the practice of a craft that is an intimate pursuit. Writing takes courage.
Featured Writing
Blue Horses
After Pattiann Rogers’s “The Greatest Grandeur”
by
Frederike Gravenstein
Lightning peals
bisecting the hayfields
sprawled below
A green grey ridge of rain
A rust orange
rock
juts out of the boney landscape
Another crack of lightning
stabs the dark emptiness
In a flash, the blue horses are gone
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 "startle." Here is the very same process Frederike used to write her startling poem, though we are using a different piece of writing. You have complete freedom to write whatever you like, by the way, whether it's poetry or prose, fiction or nonfiction...
PROMPT:
One way to startle your writing awake is to reach into another writer's "cupboard"
and pull out her words to play with. One way to do this is through a process I call "The Gather," which was inspired by Dr. Gabrielle Lusser Rico. Here's how to do it:
* Draw a square in the center of a blank piece of paper. I like to think of this square as a magnet that will pull just the right bits of language to
itself. * Listen to the poem "Sometimes I Am Startled Out of Myself," by Barbara Crooker. (Just click on the word "LISTEN" on the upper left. You'll hear some cool literary/historical facts first.) Don't think or analyze, just
listen to the sound and music of the words. * Listen to the poem again, and this time, as you listen, "Gather" words and phrases from the writing at random, grabbing them as they go by. Again, don't think or analyze, just write random words and phrases around
your magnetic center. Put them anywhere you like, arranged any way that pleases-clockwise, counterclockwise, higgledy-piggledy. * Read over your words and phrases, and let one of them, or a few of them in combination, suggest a writing subject or working title to you. Go with whatever shows up in your brain. You can't do this wrong. * Write your theme, topic, or title in that square in the center of your paper. Stare at it, sitting there, surrounded by words and phrases. * Rewrite your writing subject or working title on a separate piece of paper. Keep your Gather beside it for the next step. * Set a timer for four
minutes, and assemble a piece of writing from your Gather. (For the applauding timer I use, just click here.) Use as many or as few of your Gathered words and phrases as you like. Add anything you care to. Note: This process, like many of the
others, is designed to be done without thinking or analyzing. Don't think or analyze. Just write. * Read your finished piece out loud, and allow yourself to be startled at the thought that you can connect with -- and honor -- other writers through this process anytime 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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