Volume X, Issue 15
April 14, 2021
Dear ,
I can still hear the exact inflection of my then high school son Dan's voice as he responded to any good news or good story with a resounding "Sweet!"
It's hard to believe that he turned 32 last month. Here he is with his love of a wife, Allison, his dad and I, of course, and his niece Ellie, who takes sweet to a whole new level!
We are all reveling in being fully vaccinated (Allison is a teacher, Dan volunteers at a vaccination center, and Richard and I are, well, of that
age). We're also in being together, a simple pleasure we no longer take for granted.
One of the things I love best about being writer is being able to capture and preserve the sweetest moments of my life in full detail. As Vita Sackville-West put it, "It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?"
A number of my poems and essays, in fact, contain my best attempt to gather the sweetness of a particular day, or a particular moment, as faithfully as I can.
Today's featured writing is one of these, a prose poem entitled, fittingly, "Sweet." I'm so grateful that I wrote it, so that I'll never forget the delightful, affirming synchronicity it recounts.
I hope you enjoy it, and that you begin, if you haven't already, capturing the sweetest moments in your life in writing. It's so lovely to revisit them. And so easy to forget even the moments that contain the "splashiest" of serendipities, like the one at the end of my poem below.
Love and light,
Maureen
Some Noteworthy Sensoria
Events
Sensoria, CPCC's gem of an arts festival, is back this spring, after being cancelled last year due to the you-know-what. All the 2021 events will be virtual, so you can attend in your pajamas if you like! I've included some of the events I'm most excited about below. Here's a link to all the offerings: www.cpcc.edu/community-and-arts/sensoria.
"SENSE AND SENSIBILITY" THEATRE PRODUCTION
7:30 P.M., FRIDAY, APRIL 16; SATURDAY, APRIL 17; THURSDAY APRIL 15 - 2:30 P.M. SUNDAY, APRIL 18
IRENE BLAIR HONEYCUTT
IRENE BLAIR HONEYCUTT DISTINGUISHED LECTURER EUGENE SCOTT
THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2021 - 11 A.M.
SLAM WITH STUDENT WRITERS ASSEMBLED GUILD (SWAG) CREATIVE WRITING STUDENTS: A POETRY READ
THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2021 - 3 P.M.
BEATLES CHARLOTTE FABFEST SNEAK PEEK
AND TOSCO MUSIC
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2021 - 12:30 P.M.
COMMUNITY READ DISCUSSION: "JUST MERCY"
THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2021 - 12:30 P.M.
April is National Poetry Month!
Celebrate with
POETRY ROCKS!
Would you like your writing—prose and/or poetry—to be more graceful,
powerful, beautiful? Do you sometimes find poetry confusing or intimidating and wish you could “crack the code”? Or do you enjoy writing and reading poems, but want a more thorough understanding of what makes a poem good? Then this poetry extravaganza is for you.
Expect a good time exploring what makes a poem a poem, gaining the knowledge you need to confidently create and revise poetry, and strengthening your writing skills in all genres.
It would be a joy and an honor to share what rocks about poetry with you. Learn more here.
HERE’S WHAT YOU GET:
- 23 poetry creation tools, delivered one per day (Monday through Friday) to your inbox. Each tool zeroes in on one aspect of poetry and provides an innovative method to approach writing a poem. Many of them are great for creating prose, too. The tools include:
* a purpose, so you’re clear what you will learn
* background information when helpful
* “how-to” directions to create a poem
* an example that illustrates the poetry tool in action
* a short reflection to solidify the concepts covered
* “Hone Your Craft” suggestions for further exploration
* a short reflection to solidify the concepts covered
- A PDF document of each tool that you can print or save on your computer
- An audio recording of each tool, so you can learn by listening and/or reading
- Instruction on the role of audience, reading like a writer, and the process of revision, including a handy Revision Checkpoint Chart—this information can be applied to strengthen your prose as well as poetry
- An e-book that contains the information and resources covered, as well as your 23 poetry creation tools for ongoing use
WHERE: From the comfort of your own home, via the web.
WHEN: Any time you want! And once you receive all 23 tools, they’re yours to keep, which means that you can keep using them for years to come.
COST: $45
TO REGISTER: To pay with a check via mail, email here for instructions. To register for Poetry Rocks! online, click here.
More WordPlay opportunities coming soon.
Stay posted!
Some days I know it’s all sheer gift. Like this morning, walking the dog under a yellow umbrella, juggling the handle with the leash and a cup of coffee, happy fool that I am. All the people who drive by saluting me with a wave and a smile. Like tonight, over dinner, after whining to my friend Dede that I haven’t been writing anywhere near as often as I’d like, how she says, “We could write when we get
together.”
“Let’s write right now,” I say, eager to work with an essay about my mother’s sweet parsnips, having had an idea two days ago I’ve been itching to play with. And though she’s reluctant, she has no paper, only her work laptop, she meant next time, she says yes, but just for ten minutes. “Do you need a prompt?” I ask, and she says yes, so I riffle through my bag for leftover handouts from
one of my writing classes, come up empty except for a flier from a writer’s workshop held months ago. There’s a poem on the back. “Here,” I say, “close your eyes and let your finger land on a line and run with it.” She wrinkles her nose when she reads her line: sweet with songs of indefinable and I ask if that will work and she says yes, and I say, “That’s kind of cool because I’m writing something about sweet myself,” and off we go, ten minutes right there in the noise of The
Fortune Cookie, where we are because we love their Sa Cha Chicken and they don’t care how long we sit.
When our time is up, we read each other what we’ve written, and hers is beautiful, sweet indeed, on its way to a poem about the texts her freshman son sends her from college, and mine needs much work but is a beginning, and I am happy, and we agree that a little bit of writing time is enough to be a writer on those days when that’s all there is. After all, Dede says, she just heard
Gertrude Stein only wrote an hour a day. So much is good enough these days that didn’t used to be. Earlier, the waitress cleared our plates and left the bill, topped by two fortune cookies in cellophane, and Dede reaches for one, pushes the small tray toward me, says, “That one’s yours.” I crack it open and, no kidding, my fortune reads, It is sweet. We laugh and laugh, so tickled, so amazed, so glad to be here. Whatever “it” is, yes, it is sweet.
* The italicized lines of poetry are from Mary Belle "Peg" Campbell's poem "Pine Lake at
Twilight."
Purchase/learn more about Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong here.
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 “sweet.”
Today, listen to your life and note at least one moment worth capturing. Put that moment into writing, in poetry or prose. Flesh it out on the page so vividly that, if you read your words years later, they will bring the whole experience flooding back. You may want to take this practice on for a week, or even longer. Like, say, the rest of National Poetry Month.
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 three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, 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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