Archive for the ‘Assignments’ Category

• First Drafts, Broken Rules

  Date: 2017.03.19 | Category: Assignments, Imagining Love, Poetry, The Art of Writing | Response: 0

  First Drafts, Broken Rules

  Someone said, and many have repeated it-where the rumor started, I don’t know-that a writer shouldn’t send first drafts out for the public eye.  But, I am a writer who makes up her own rules, does her own thing, ‘cause someone said, and many have repeated, a writer needs to take risks or she will just sound like the choir (although I do like the music of choirs, but the point is sometimes I need to sing alone).

  On another note, a writer I truly respect told me I revise the energy, the spirit, the meaning out of my poetry when I revise.  It’s true, revising for me is like shopping.  Once my cart is full, I throw out some things, others I put back and exchange them for another.  Sometimes I do this again and again.  This basket of strawberries.  No, this one, the similes are endless.  These tomatoes on the vine.  No, these are are full of contradiction.  Chocolate marshmallow fudge ice cream.  No, vanilla, subtle.  This bread.  Yes, give me all the nuts, the flax, the wheat-concrete images. Yet, sometimes I just say, be gone, be gone.

  Some say a writer must write every day, early in the morning in fact.  Early for me is 10 a.m., and by then I am already running late.  I write when I’m sitting in a class and the demand is to write following the guidelines of a particular writing exercise.  Surprisingly, I’ve gotten some good poems this way.  But, I don’t often sit in writing classes.  My norm is, when self-pity fills my lungs, when anxiety and fear punch my stomach, when country songs and chic flicks don’t soothe my troubled soul, I reach for my 3 x 5 or my 4 x6 index cards, my leaking roller ball pen, and I write.  I number the front, the back.  The stack rises. The purge releases words I don’t know.  There’s a rhythm too it.  A longing.  A stunning revelation.

  It’s been months, years, sometimes only weeks.  Yesterday’s sorrows became yesterday’s poems.  I read them over and over mouthing each sound, whispering, repeating, louder now, faster now.  Until, I’m inside out, exhausted.

  Awake now, today now, I risk giving these poems to anyone that wants them, anyone that might need them, anyone that wants to rip them apart and theorize them.  This is a selfish gift.  A gift nonetheless.  Someday I may want to return, to revise, to revision-to edit, and I’ll know where they are, and that they served me well.  And maybe you will not notice the blemishes, but the possibility.  And maybe your next poem might be about your great-grandmother or begin with “If truth be told” and maybe you will give it to the world pleased with its inception, free with its release.

  ©Sherry Quan Lee, March 19, 2017

   

  IF I TOLD YOU THE TRUTH

  If truth be told my friend is a born again Christian, my son is a redneck.

  If truth be told, loneliness is my demon and always has been.

  My sister does not talk to me my mood swings cause her stress; she’s

  done it before, stopped loving me when I loved a woman,

  and the woman, my mother, well my sister stopped talking to her, too.

  If truth be told, according to Mother, I am white, white, white, but I’m not

  and neither is she.

  If truth be told I’m not a writer, my advisor was right they didn’t teach

  me and somehow I knew it was my fault.

  If truth be told I don’t want to go to church, or book stores or plays where

  I know I either have to listen or perform;

  or comedy clubs.

  If truth be told I want to see my three-year-old granddaughter.  My nine year old grandsons.

  If truth be told the gig is up-shopping, gambling, even eating and though the smoke has

  already cleared I don’t need therapy or an excuse to hide my feelings.

  my heart is an old open book full of clichés, chocolate truffle smears, and tears.

  If truth be told I have been cloistered-it’s not my calling but my situation.

  If truth be told my car isn’t safe, my house isn’t breathing, I could in a wink of an eye be homeless.

  If truth be told I don’t want to fly I don’t want to wander; I haven’t missed anything in 70 years.

  If truth be told I’ve fallen before, but this time the fracture wasn’t worth mending.

  If truth be told I want to sing it is done, get over it, I am over it.

  If truth be told there is nothing beyond survival, I have nothing to give you, the world

  is wound too tight we can only untie knots, try not to slip on the laces.

  If I told you the truth I always wanted to be the clown the stand-up comedian the one no one

  would guess wasn’t me.

  If I told you the truth I wouldn’t tell you the truth but ease into your life.

  If truth be told being of a certain age is not what someone else says it is, not what you expect,

  and everyday is a question mark.

  To tell the truth today I looked out my window.  Satisfied.  Rocking. Back and

  forth, catonic-like, rocking.

  If I told you the truth the youth have the words, the works, the camaraderie, the meet and greets,

  the relationships.  Solidarity. Each other’s backs.

  If I told you the truth I’m not a bridge, never pretended to be one.   Every breath, every step difficult.

  If truth be told it’s too late for me to be anything, but

  righteous.  And, alone.  And, lonely.

  The truth is I’m tired.  It’s late.  I have [no] regrets.

  The truth is I don’t want to recycle.  Spin it anyway you want, but I won’t step outside

  my skin. The stretch is all mine.  Was mine.

  If truth be told the world sees no one, story becomes someone else’s theory, and you

  and I don’t meet online, or in a bar, in the future or the past.

  The truth is tomorrow, I might leave my house, walk to the mailbox, but today in this moment

  I’m in my pj’s, eating popcorn, watching Netflix.

   

  ©Sherry Quan Lee

  March 18, 2017

   

  Saint Patrick’s Day 2017 (1948-    )

   

  Dear red hair son of the Irish plantation owner do you know how complicated you’ve made my life?  You, so absent in your southern ways.  A prickle in history not so long gone, nameless, yet, ever present in my naming.  Did your father teach you not to fear consequences, did he tell you my great-grandmother was yours for the taking because he owned her.  Or did he say, hands off, son, she’s mine?  Money can’t buy everything, it certainly can’t buy complacency.  But, yes, Ms. Greer kept your house clean and the both of you, sons of southern hospitality, well fed.  And you, in return, paid her in lust, in rape, in pregnanc(ies).  Sure there were the rumors, you loved her, my great-great grandmother, her glistening, black skin and textured thick hair; strong legs, warm hands; but, it wasn’t a love story.  But grandmother was born anyways.  Beautiful, free, and independent.  It was her own doing she traveled North, married a man with his own black white history and the babies kept coming.  Mother denies she is born black, but if black was a lie, she would have nothing to lie about and I, her daughter, would have no truths to tell, secrets to uncover.  So many secrets that have filled books and heartache and joy- sometimes joy- knowing there once was a plantation and a red hair boy, but if she had only known she really needed only this, this one poem, this one little splash of green, a bit of humor, and a blind eye, if she only knew she didn’t have to give up her life to know who she is, if she had known.

   

  Sherry Quan Lee

  ©March 18, 2017

   

• 10 minute writing assignment: revised twice

  Date: 2015.06.11 | Category: Assignments | Response: 0

  I enjoy re-visioning (not editing). It’s fascinating to see where a poem will lead you, if you let it. It helps to play with words, with sounds, with punctuation: change happens. The following poem changed meaning from the draft to the second revision: suddenly the grandmother was no longer thinking about kisses from former lovers, but from her mother-did her mother kiss her, did she kiss her mother-these thoughts triggered by the way her grandson, who has autism, kisses her by not physically kissing her, but by her kissing him.

  This poem is far from completion.

  Any comments about your process of revision welcomed.

  Give Grandma a Kiss
  for Ethan

  I always wear mauve lipstick, give
  Grandma a kiss—

  he leans in, all 2 1/2 years of him,
  knowing more than I know
  after 67 years not knowing
  if my mother kissed me.

  He leans in without hesitation,
  silent, vulnerable.
  I mark his tender forehead with a temporary
  tattoo: my kiss his kiss. Like no kiss
  I can remember.

  give grandma a kiss

  His heart organic, knowing what it is
  to hold breath a millisecond; a mime
  needing to be understood.

  give grandma a kiss

  Grandma wants to see underneath
  his innocence, to reach what she lost;
  she was a girl afraid to speak.

  give grandma a kiss

  Later, my daughter-in-law, the nurse,
  questions what she thinks is a scratch
  on his forehead;
  how has he hurt himself this time?

  The hurt is mine. The gift: unwrapped,
  visible, transparent.

  ©Sherry Lee
  June 11, 2015
  Second revision

  Give Grandma a Kiss
  for Ethan

  I always wear mauve lipstick, give
  Grandma a kiss—

  He leans in, all seven years of him, knowing
  more than I know
  after 67 years, and thousands of kisses.

  He leans in, without hesitation, vulnerable.
  I mark his tender forehead with a temporary
  tattoo. My kiss his kiss. Like no kiss
  a man has given me. Words
  not necessary language. His way
  of love, spontaneous, silent

  give grandma a kiss

  a heart organic, knowing what it is
  to hold breath a millisecond; a mime
  needing to be understood.

  give grandma a kiss

  Grandma wants to see underneath
  the innocence, to reach what she lost
  or never experienced.

  give grandma a kiss

  Later, my daughter-in-law, the nurse,
  questions what she thinks is a scratch;
  how has he hurt himself this time?

  The hurt is mine; the gift unwrapped,
  visible, transparent.

  ©Sherry Lee
  May 25, 2015
  First revision
  

  The Kiss, More Than a Kiss

  I always wear mauve lipstick, give
  Grandma a kiss—
  He leans in, all seven years of him, knowing
  more than I know after
  67 years of thousands of kisses.
  He leans in, without hesitation. I
  mark his brown forehead with a temporary
  tattoo. My kiss his kiss. Like no kiss
  a man has given me. Words not
  necessary language. His way
  of love, spontaneous, silent

  a heart organic, knowing what it is
  to hold breath a millisecond; a mime
  not needing to be understood.

  But Grandma wants to see underneath
  the innocence, to reach what she lost
  or never experienced.

  Later, my daughter-in-law, the nurse,
  questions what she thinks is a scratch;
  how has he hurt himself this time?

  The hurt is mine; the gift unwrapped,
  visible, transparent.

  ©Sherry Lee
  May 19, 2015
  Draft

• WRITER’S HESITATION or I’m not “blocked,” I’m lazy

  Date: 2015.05.01 | Category: Assignments, The Art of Writing | Response: 1

  Often it’s been said that there is no such thing as writer’s block.  I tend to agree.  However, personally, I have “writer’s hesitation.”  [I know, the period inside the quotation looks weird, but I’ve been told by experts that’s the way it is.] I hesitate for various reasons, but most recently, if I want to be truthful, because I am lazy (not all the time, and not about everything).

  I want to write a poem.  It’s been awhile since I wrote a poem.  Specifically, maybe a year or five or eight.  I don’t count years or poems, it’s just that I’ve been writing prose.  But the poem I want to write is someplace outside of myself.

  The poem is gurgling, wants to be set free; but, I won’t release it.  Freeing it would take time and effort.  What is beneath the surface?  Something so big I can’t even name it.  Something larger than myself.  And that’s the point.  I’m 68 years old.  For the past thirty something years I’ve been writing about me (at least recently I’ve managed to write about me in terms of not only intersectionality, but also in connection to local and national historical events), but I want to move beyond myself, discover more than my own humanity.

  The enormity of knowing what to write about has me cowering in a corner (okay, on the couch watching Netflix).  It takes effort to focus. It takes relationships.  It takes community.  It takes the opposite of lazy.

  Solution:  I am going to take a class.  A writing class.  My boss is teaching the class.  Some of my students may be in the class.  I will be intimidated, maybe, initially; but, I will knock “lazy” on her butt and wave goodbye to “hesitation.” I will write a poem, or two, maybe even three.

  I may be the only 68 year old writer in the class, no denying it; but, I’ve always believed in life-long learning-I’ve just been too “lazy” to practice it.

  Sherry Lee

  May 1, 2015

   

  Share your comments regarding “writer’s hesitation.”

   

• READING SEPTEMBER 24, 2014 at Birchbark Books

  Date: 2014.09.08 | Category: Assignments, LOVE IMAGINED | Response: 0

  The Birchbark Books Reading Series continues its 6th season of readings on Wednesday, September 24 at 7:00 p.m. Reading will be Satish P. Jayaraj, Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, Sherry Quan Lee, and Eric Hove.

  Curated by Michael Kiesow Moore and Ardie Medina, the Birchbark Books Reading Series features new, emerging, and established writers quarterly September through May.

  Artist bios:

  A perpetual immigrant, Indian writer Satish P. Jayaraj now calls Minnesota home. Though not used to the inhumane winters, the love by and of the writing community of the Twin Cities quickly won him over. Satish enjoys writing in multiple creative genres. He is working on his second fantasy novel, a follow up to the e-published Secret Of the Naga Dragons. For this evening he will proudly present some of his poetry.

  Sherrie Fernandez-Williams holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University and is a recipient of an Artist Initiative Award through the Minnesota State Arts Board, a SASE/Jerome Award through Intermedia Arts, and the Jones’ Commission Award through the Playwrights’ Center. She was a selected participant in the Loft Mentor Series for Creative Nonfiction, and the Givens Black Writers Collaborative. Her work has been published in various literary magazines and anthologies. Sherrie’s debut memoir, Soft was published by North Star Press (2014). Fernandez-Williams discovered her need for words in Brooklyn, NY where she was born and raised, but “grew up” as a writer in the Twin Cities.
  
  Sherry Quan Lee (MFA in Creative Writing, University of Minnesota) is a Community Instructor at Metropolitan State University, and has taught classes and mentored writers at Intermedia Arts and the Loft Literary Center; co-taught A Gathering of Storytellers for the University of Minnesota Women of Color Organization (UWOC), Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC), a partnership between the University of Minnesota and North Minneapolis, and for other community organizations state wide. She is the author of Chinese Blackbird, a memoir in verse, How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman’s life, and hot off the press, Love Imagined: a mixed race memoir (all published by Modern History Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan).

  Eric Hove holds a Master Fine Arts from Hamline University and serves as a poetry editor for Red Bird Chapbooks. His poetry has been published in Versus Literary Journal, Sleet Magazine, and rock, paper, scissors. He is working on his first book,Closing Time in the Museum of Certainty. Eric also volunteers with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.