Peggy drew out attention to poems with something happening off the page. She age as examples “Homecoming” by Shane Book, and two poems of her own which she wrote on the board:
“Beyond Words, This Language” (from Gnawed Bones, Red Hen Press, 2010):
The morning I was born
you held my hand.
The morning you died
I held your hand.
What’s left
to forgive?
“After Talking To My Husband’s Lover” (from The Circle of Totems, U of Pittsburgh Press, 1988)
When I take off my dress
I no longer have a secret
Place left in me.
She pointed out the importance of title in the second poem.
She then had us try to write something “off the page.”
David Crouse then gave us an example of having the dramatic action take place offstage in fiction, and invited us to tru to write such a scene.
Jeanne had us look at the letter poems whe gave us yesterday. She pointed out that these poems should be addressed to a specific person rather than a general audience, and indicate what’s going on now and the past, where the people are now, and why, what are their stories, both together and separately, and what gets the speaker to begin the poem. She had us start letter poems, and continue to work on them as homework.
In the afternoon we all read from our work at Schaible Auditorium.
Peggy, if the indentation isn’t correct on your poems, blame WordPress.
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'Homecoming' Blog 
Hi everyone,
Today 7/29/2010 This afternoon I was very proud to be part of such a remarkable class. Don asked if I would post the piece I read this afternoon during the”formal reading by participants.” So:
The Hide-a-Bed (response to Jeanne’s Aubade assignment)
A hide-a-bed’s metal frame digs into my back.
Resort blankets are the inevitable light green.
Knotty pine paneling and the smell of a reedy lake
are trapped by darkness in this rented cabin.
Those brauts were good, we say,
But the potato salad was better last year.
Maybe we say that every year.
“I need more covers.” “Then take ‘em.”
Teenagers from two cabins down hoot as they walk past
crunching the gravel in unison. Our kids are upstairs.
So we whisper about the bone marrow test.
You’ll do clinical trials if the news is bad. You say this
into a mattress already flattened by other stories.
There will be new drugs in three years.
“If I can just last,“ you say now. My hand
is only a hand on the skin of your shoulder.
After the silence a loon calls.
You say, “We’re out of worms.”
His mate pushes her answer up
from deep under her black feet.
“Would you get some this morning?” I say,
from the relentless dip in the bed.
There is no going back say the loons.
Light is already crawling through the wet grass.
You swing your feet to the floor and I feel a backwash.
At the edge of morning loons ripple parenthesis on the lake.
Nervous sopranos, before a day of breathtaking dives,
Ask one another: Will it be all right? Are you still there?
Bittersweet day tomorrow enjoying your company.
Mary Jo
Thanks for posting this amazing poem, it really went by me too quickly at the reading.It just has so many things working for it. Love it.
Assignment: Writing something “Off the Page”, with title
“AFTER a DOUBLE MASECTOMY”
Your deepest fears are needless,
.
as I dive headlong
into your seabed,
…….and rise,
…………smiling.
AND
“TWIN GRANDSONS”
Both smiling, shyly
…then bubbling;
Always together, each his brother’s keeper.
Conspiring daily to outwit their world;
A united front in tears at bedtime.
.
Could my grief bear just one pair of shoes?
David’s Exercise: Write of Dramatic Action without giving all the story.
THE PHONE CALL
When I returned home, there was a message on the answering machine that the brokerage office manager, Les, wanted to speak to me as soon as I came to work. That note of urgency frightened me. Had I seriously screwed up? Did I do a “Buy” instead of a “Sell”? Was an order made with extra zeroes, like 10,000 shares instead of 100? Who was going to pay? Bottom Line: Who would pay?
Denise was somber and only said, “Go see Les now.”, then turned away.
I left my bag at my desk and walked past Jim’s emply office. The monitor was on.
“Christ! What did I do?” I was dumbfounded and scoured my memory of last week up to leaving Wednesday night for California.
Les’s face was without expression.
“Jim’s dead. He shot himself Friday.”
I did not expect that at all.
.
I’m posting this write I just finished because for me it embodies a little of everything I’ve learned these past two weeks. I’m loving the new level of awareness.
Worst of Sins and Crimes
The white blouse,
now stained crimson
from what has just proceeded,
lies crumpled
on the bedroom carpet,
itself soiled by muddy boot prints
leading to the open bathroom door.
Her frayed and tattered jeans
lie splayed across the pale tiled floor,
and from the bathtub,
the faintest of low moaning,
limp nakedness barely concealed
by a cloth of fragarant froth.
Time stolen, now squandered.
Daylight most aggrievedly waisted,
soaking in this summer’s afternoon,
ripening …
and more strawberries
yet to pick.