Volume VIII, Issue 27
July 15, 2019
Dear ,
This past week, Richard and I, along with our daughter, son-in-law, and their three children, dodged raindrops to take a short hike down behind Dry Falls, which is between Franklin and Highlands, North Carolina. (Note all the commas in this sentence that gave you places to pause. One of today's featured
writings, both by travel writer Pico Iyer, is an article I have loved for years called "In Praise of the Humble Comma." I'm excited to share it with you, especially if you are a fellow comma-lover. If you find commas difficult, check out this handy chart by Mignon Fogarty, AKA Grammar Girl, and her other helpful articles on
commas, too.
What made this trip even sweeter is the memory of making this same trek behind Dry Falls back in 2003, with Amanda and her brother Dan.
How lucky I was back then to have encountered (thanks to my wonderful writing teacher Irene Blair Honeycutt), a poem by Sharon Olds called "Looking at Them Asleep" that ends with the
lines,
. . . . . . . . . . oh my Lord how I
know these two. When love comes to me and says
What do you know, I say This girl, this boy."
Poems, with their line and stanza breaks and, often, mid-line punctuation as well, have always, even on the busiest days, provided beautiful pauses to breathe in what I love about my life. And I am still reciting these lines of Sharon Olds', now for my grandchildren as well as my children. (Ellie and Harry are pictured above, and Harry and Rhys below, this time at
Juney Wanks Falls in the Deep Creek area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Bryson City, North Carolina.)
But as much as I love this baby girl, these little boys, what made our mini-trip such a great experience was rising early each morning to sit in a rocker on the porch alone to drink in
the sight of the fog nestled in the mountain valleys. (Just like this, though I did NOT have my cell phone out there with me to take photos.)
Image by saly_hua from Pixabay
These pauses gave me the equanimity to roll with the squabbles and meltdowns that invariably arose. Which brings me to the second featured writing of the week, a TED talk by Pico Iyer on "The Art of Stillness" that addresses, among other things, both Shakespeare and the need to take frequent
"Sabbaths" from technology lest it rob us of our peace of mind, as well as our time.
I don't think, in my six and a half years of writing these weekly zines, that I've featured two pieces by the same writer before, but I was so struck by the way these two pieces each spoke to the value of pausing, and of breathing space, that I decided to go for it. I so hope they enrich you—and
encourage you to find time to pause this week and drink in the goodness in your life.
Love and light,
Maureen
Upcoming WordPlay
POETRY ROCKS!
(Learning the Ins and Outs of Poetry; Strengthening Your Writing Skills; Adding a New Layer of Literacy Beauty to Your Life)
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!
HERE’S WHAT YOU GET:
- 23 poetry creation tools, delivered one per day (Monday through Friday) to your inbox — in honor of National Poetry month. Use them as you get them, use them when you can, use them over and over to create poems. 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
- Additional poetry resources
- 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 info@wordplaynow.com for instructions. To register for Poetry Rocks online, click here.
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CLASSES AT CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
TELLING YOUR LIFE STORIES WITH GRACE
(Week 7)
Our life stories are a precious legacy, imbued with grace we can often see only in hindsight. Capturing these stories “gracefully” in words is a gift, not only to ourselves, but to those who love us – they’ll be treasured for generations to come. Come learn engaging tools and techniques to retrieve and record your adventures, loves, losses, successes, mistakes, and more with ease and, yes, grace, no matter where you
are in the process.
WHERE: Chautauqua Institution. 1 Ames Ave, Chautauqua, NY 14722. Hultquist 201B
WHEN: Monday, August 5th – Thursday, August 8th, 2019. 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
COST: TBA
TO REGISTER: Register directly through the Chautauqua Institution website
here
DELICIOUS MEMORIES
(Week 9)
Food not only nurtures and sustains us, it’s also a rich source for writing. We’ll explore our culinary connections as we write of when, where, what, with whom, how — and even why — we ate. We’ll also learn from the work of accomplished writers. You can use the tools you’ll learn to create a family cookbook, individual essays, stories, or poems, scenes in fiction or memoir, a food blog—or just for your own
pleasure.
WHERE: Chautauqua Institution. 1 Ames Ave, Chautauqua, NY 14722. Hultquist 201A
WHEN: Monday, August 19th – Thursday, August 22nd, 2019. 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
COST: TBA
TO REGISTER: Register directly through the Chautauqua Institution website here
More WordPlay opportunities here.
The gods, they say, give breath, and they take it away. But the same could be said—could it not?—of the humble comma. Add it to the present clause, and, of a sudden, the mind is, quite literally, given pause to think; take it out if you wish or forget it and the mind is deprived of a resting place. Yet still the comma gets no respect. It seems just a slip of a thing, a pedant's tick, a blip on the edge of our consciousness, a kind of printer's smudge almost. Small, we claim, is beautiful (especially in the age of the
microchip). Yet what is so often used, and so rarely recalled, as the comma—unless it be breath itself?
Punctuation, one is taught, has a point: to keep up law and order. Punctuation marks are the road signs placed along the highway of our communication . . .
~ Pico Iyer
Click here to read the entire article.
Pico Iyer
for
TEDSalon
. . . More than 2,000 years ago, the Stoics were reminding us it's not our experience that makes our lives, it's what we do with it. Imagine a hurricane suddenly sweeps through your town and reduces every last thing to rubble. One man is traumatized for life. But another, maybe even his brother, almost feels liberated, and decides this is a great chance to start his life anew. It's exactly the same event, but radically different responses. There is nothing either good or bad, as Shakespeare told us in
"Hamlet," but thinking makes it so. And this has certainly been my experience as a traveler. Twenty-four years ago I
took the most mind-bending trip across North Korea. But the trip lasted a few days. What I've done with it sitting
still, going back to it in my head, trying to understand it, finding a place for it in my thinking, that's lasted 24 years already and will probably last a lifetime. The trip, in other words, gave me some amazing sights, but it's only sitting still that allows me to turn those into lasting insights. And I sometimes think that so much of our life takes place inside our heads, in memory or imagination or interpretation or speculation, that if I really want to change my life I might best begin by changing my mind. Again, none of this is new; that's why Shakespeare and the Stoics were telling us this centuries ago, but Shakespeare never had to
face 200 emails in a day. (Laughter) The Stoics, as far as I know, were not on Facebook. We all know that in our
on-demand lives, one of the things that's most on demand is ourselves. Wherever we are, any time of night or
day, our bosses, junk-mailers, our parents can get to us. Sociologists have actually found that in recent years Americans are working fewer hours than 50 years ago, but we feel as if we're working more. We have more and more time-saving devices, but sometimes, it seems, less and less time. We can more and more easily make contact with people on the furthest corners of the planet, but sometimes in that process we lose contact with ourselves. And one of my biggest surprises as a traveler has been to find that often it's exactly the people who have most enabled us to get anywhere who are intent on going nowhere. In other words, precisely those beings who have created the technologies that override so many of the limits of old, are the ones wisest about the need for limits, even when it comes to technology. I once went to the Google
headquarters and I saw all the things many of you have heard about; the indoor tree houses, the trampolines, workers
at that time enjoying 20 percent of their paid time free so that they could just let their imaginations go wandering. But what impressed me even more was that as I was waiting for my digital I.D., one Googler was telling me about the program that he was about to start to teach the many, many Googlers who practice yoga to become trainers in it, and the other Googler was telling me about the book that he was about to write on the
inner search engine, and the ways in which science has empirically shown that sitting still, or meditation, can lead
not just to better health or to clearer thinking, but even to emotional intelligence. . . .
~ Pico Iyer
Click here to read (and/or listen to) the entire TED talk.
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 "pause."
PROMPT: This week, as we are talking about taking pauses, your "writing" prompts do not all involve writing.
- Deliberately pause for a moment or two at least three times today. Take a few deep breaths, and listen—inward as well as outward. And/or set a timer for five minutes and deliberately do nothing. For more benefit, repeat all week long.
- Choose several works by writers you love and read them out loud, slowly, being sure to pause at each punctuation mark. Make special note of the commas! Try Sharon Olds's "Looking at Them Asleep" and Pico Iyers' "In Praise of the Humble Comma" for
starters. Can you feel the breathing space, or, as French composer Claude Debussy said of music, “the space between the notes”?
- Read a passage of your own work out loud. Can you find places that would benefit from a pause? What punctuation, or other break (sentence, paragraph, line, stanza) would supply breathing room? Again, you can check out Grammar Girl's guide to the most common comma usage here.
It's fun to play with prompts in community with fellow writers, and to be able to share the results when you're done. You can find out about WordPlay classes, workshops, and retreats here.
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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