Peggy started us out with the lists in The Pillow Book, by Lei Shonagon. She then asked us to make our own list of annoying things, and write on one of them. Homework: Revise something you’ve started.
David started a discussion which rather ran away with us on fiction as opposed to nonfiction.He then gave us a writing exercise–Write a conversation between at least two characters, and make it direct–no talking past each other. Then, as homework, take that same situation, but write it more indirectly–allow the people to talk past each other, conceal their motives, and so on.
Jeanne handed out a poem: “Sacred” by Stephen Dunn and led us in a discussion of the poem. She then had us write something that explored the role of “Sacred” to us. Her homework assignment part 1 was to revise something already started. Part 2 (as she reminded me in a comment) is to write something on “Why I write.” She also thought these should be exchanged, and one way of doing that is to post them as comments to this blog. Just click on “Comment” below the bottom picture if you’re on the general page (without comments on the bottom) or if other comments are showing, fill in the white box with your comments and then click on “post comment.”
As should be apparent from the rest of these photos, we spent the afternoon in the Georgeson Botanical Gardens, where by a minor miracle it did not rain.
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A second part of the homework from me: write from the prompt “Why I Write” this weekend. We’ll see about finding away to share these writings, so that you can return to each other for encouragement & inspiration after the festival is over!
From the Gardens assignment
Brightest Blossom
Stepping into the Gardens,
all other blossoms dimmed
at sight of Buddhist monk
in lotus position
on a weathered wooden bench,
his full length robe
the color of mairigolds,
he chortled gently with tourists,
then disappeared into the
flowered background.
In the Garden assigment
The Pansy holds his own
If you can’t take it,
don’t be a pansy.
Like the boy named Sue,
be tough or perish
and no better place than Alaska
to prove their metle(sp).
Though short in stature,
In Summer, they stand proud and handsome.
In Autumn, they are last to fall.
In Winter, like any smart one,
“they know when to fold them”.
In Spring, they’re the few to renew …
even though the packet says they don’t.
I would gladly have them on my side,
in a blooming garden brawl.
Afternoon in the Garden assignment.
Invasive Species
Part I
Why did he have to be from Kansas,
a place I wanted to love as much
as my father and grandparents
who came from there too.
I keep pieces of it
in photo albums
in my basement.
So it was especially hard
to have him spring up
in the crop of tourists
I was tending to
at the university
Botanical Gardens.
What compelled him to reach
for the seed pouch hidden
deep within his heart,
and cast them upon us?
I don’t remember the comment,
only that it was ugly and loud,
and the only reaction non-verbal,
for he stood instantly alone.
Part II
In Alaska … Kansas Bigotameous stands too tall,
and if not contained, readily disperses
its black seed,
which is both noxious
and a strong irritant to the spirit.
Seeds are transported
and deposited in manure.
Afternoon in the Garden assignment
Dear Cindy,
Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the UAF farm.
It looks exactly the same as when you grew up in it,
although I did see two very large satellite dishes
around back, and two more of some other sort on
the roof. Has it become a CIA safe house? Exactly
how large was that below ground room? Ha, Ha
The biggest change is probably from the inside out.
The Cooperative Extension’s vegetable plot has grown
into a Botanical Gardens, and it has become quite the
place. All the young people in town are enjoying evening
walks there, and there’s a covered picnic area big enough
we could have held our Fall pig roasts under it. Sure would
have come in handy all those years we had to run into the
the barn to escape the rain. Ha, Ha
You wouldn’t believe the number of tourists getting off the
buses, and the old house finally has a proper backyard since
they put in a hedge to give some privacy to the current tenants.
That field you used to love to twirl in?… all gone to flowers.
They even put a stream with real running water through the
whole garden. I didn’t see any fish though. Ha, Ha
Only two of the old spruce left around the house now, including
our “funny tree” with all the odd crooks. Underneath it they placed
a big rock with a brass plate that tells all the history about the house
being the first Mormon church and all. Wonder what they’d think about
the Christmas lights permanently strung on all the roof lines and windows.
Ha, Ha.
Guess you’d also be missing some sounds and smells since they got rid
of the cows and swine some years back. Funny what you remember, funny
about those grade schoolers and first thing out of their mouths getting
off the bus was, “Where’s the cow with the hole in it’s side? Funny how
things change. lol
Peggy’s Assignment: Write a poem using a list of Annoyances.
Here it is in the form of a Catalogue Poem with a lean toward Litany and Manifesto, (Come the Revolution!)
“Fate of the Accursed—A Maledictory”
The Beatitudes describe the Blessed,
But what of the Cursed,
those whom we despise?
How shall they fare?
The exploiters of the weak, who take unfair advantage, we do condemn.
The loan shark or banker draining the ignorant, we do condemn.
The lecher in the workplace, who ravishes the innocent clerk, we do condemn.
The bully who steals from the meek, we do condemn.
The authors of cruelty of too many shapes and forms, we do condemn.
The inflictors of pain who torture body or spirit, we do condemn.
One who mocks the helpless and destroys self-respect, we do condemn.
One who delights in the cries and tears of others, we do condemn.
IF there be Blessed and there be Cursed and there be Justice, let us know it.
But,
as for the Pretentious, ( whom we don’t much care for either),
we shall suffer them as penance for ourselves.
Yes, we shall suffer them as penance for ourselves.
Amen.
Sacred Green
The forts of my childhood on Jennings Bay of
Lake Minnetonka near Mound were not all green,
But I named them with colors — ah the power to name
When you are five and six, seven and eight.
They were “Black Fort” and “Gray Fort, “Brown,” “Red” and more.
One was a sturdy tree stretching out from the shore,
Perfect to straddle with skinny legs and ride like a horse.
There were umbrella roots of an upended trees, the hollow of a log,
and a boulder to which I once ran away from home.
I spread it with my mother’s green chenille robe
and perched my small self on top until
she called me home for lunch.
Always there was the lake, until we moved to the suburbs.
For sixty years I believed my spirit needed trees and water.
Then one day while swinging with Bach and Mozart
on the green glider in my living room looking out on a
frozen land, I opened “The Collected Work of Rumi”
and received the gift of the green shawl,
Solomon’s far mosque, portable temple.
Rumi said, “Remember the entrance door
to the sanctuary is inside you.”
Botanical Garden Writing
a photo of pansies for Jack and that tall strait
phallic delphinium; he is the plant person, but
my eye follows the tilting straw hat of a weeding woman
she’s strung a living stem of leaves around the brim
I do not need to see her face, and obliging unaware
she bends to her task behind a wall of green
then, among big buxom blossoms of peonies and lilies
with names like “nippon,” “embarrassment,” appledorn”
a white crowned sparrow says, “hey! follow me”
I am no aficionado of plant life unless
it smacks me in the eye with size or color or . . .
(they don’t seem to have carnivorous plants here)
I might hope one will open up and talk to me
like sparrows playing hide and seek, staying hops ahead
among the stems and branches (no photos, please)
no bird allows you to bend and take a whiff of it
David’s Dialogue Assignment (Part 1) [Direct / Focused]
“You Have the Most Remarkable Shoulders”
************
“I really shouldn’t say this but you have the most remarkable shoulders.”
“No, why do you say that. I am curious.”
“Because it sounds too artificial, too much like a line, and yet I mean it. They are smooth and well shaped, with strength and form, and deep valleys above your clavical, distinct, inviting.”
“Isn’t that overstated?” They ARE just shoulders. You are saying more, aren’t you? Why?”
“Because I notice detail and take pleasure in it, and…and because those two small ribbons binding your sundress call attention to your skin. It is attractive, you know.”
“You flatter me. This is just an ordinary dress; it’s a hot day.”
“It may have begun as one, but no, on you it is extraordinary. You dress with style, with flair, with care. It is not ‘ordinary’. You dress for the imagination.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you, for the vision. You stimulate the imagination and lead one to dream.”
*****************************************************
Jeanne’s Assignment exploring the concept of the Sacred, (“Is it a place? Who can go there? How can one enter? What is it?)
The Spot [with deep bows to Tennessee Williams]
Like Brick, (who was married to Maggie the Cat), once said: “I know when I have arrived there.”
There is a click, a little knob in my brain moves and peace flows in, but to reach it, that special place, the whiskey must also flow and be enough to shut out the rest, the nagging, the expectations, the being-what-isn’t-what-we-want-to-be even if we knew what we wanted–All that. Click! And we are in Peace–suspended-floating-infinite-until the whiskey wears off and we again live in pain.
That is the sacred spot. How can we not worship there?
.