Reading THE COFFEE SHOP NE July 21, 2023<\/p>\n
Intro: I Want Cake (bio) [see previous post of this poem]
\n1.\tThere\u2019s something about writing, about being a writer, you can\u2019t retire from it, it\u2019s got a hold on you despite the fact you might \u201cwant cake.\u201d Once a writer always a writer, I suppose.<\/p>\n
Ten Things I Know About Being a Writer (credit to the many writers who may or may not have influenced the following):<\/p>\n
1.\tThere are many reasons for writing\/for being a writer\u2014for healing, for your legacy, for pleasure\u2014because you want to be published. No matter the reason, there\u2019s usually a passion for what you are writing about (Richard Hugo mentions \u201cobsession. \u201cDon\u2019t worry if you tend to write about the same thing over and over again most writers do.<\/p>\n
2.\tKnow that writing, like identity or because of identity is fluid [not fixed]and changing, and mostly gets better the more you write. Feel free to experiment with formats within a particular poem or story or maybe your poem is a short story your short story is a poem or maybe you want to write a children\u2019s book or a novel.<\/p>\n
3.\tIt\u2019s often about who you know (how I got my job at Metro State, how I got published, etc.) Pay attention to the people you meet.<\/p>\n
4.\tRead books, including novels, novels about writers\/about writing\/about publishing<\/p>\n
a.\tFINDING MAKEBA by Alexs Pate
\nb.\tWOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
\nc.\t!YO! by Julia Alvarez
\nd.\tTHE TRIGGERING TOWN by Richard Hugo<\/p>\n
5.\tTake classes, join workshops share at open mics<\/p>\n
6.\tBe spontaneous, ready to write when the need arises. I don\u2019t write every day, every morning, maybe not even once a month. Some may call it writers block, but I just consider it avoidance.<\/p>\n
Avoidance, About Writing<\/strong><\/p>\n Recently a colleague started cleaning shared office space in a fury. Frantically dusting and polishing and sweeping and moving clutter from one environment to another or trashing it. She admitted she was avoiding yet another challenging job responsibility. Soon everyone in the office was cleaning. <\/p>\n The writing process for me is about avoidance.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t write. <\/p>\n I clean my house. I go shopping. I watch a movie. Sex. Sleep.<\/p>\n Eventually the writing will win I gather my tools: coffee, cigarettes, potato chips, red licorice, sit at a dining room table<\/p>\n shuffle papers. I pee. I smoke a cigarette. I drink coffee <\/p>\n writing happens when it needs to happen<\/p>\n what is it you don\u2019t know you know you need to get rid of<\/p>\n I know there is something I know or I wouldn\u2019t be sitting here<\/p>\n writing is a literary vacuum, it sucks up and eliminates<\/p>\n I write on recycled paper<\/p>\n slash and surrender: exchange dead words with alive ones<\/p>\n as a first draft simmers I continue to revise draft number two is ready to print each new draft allows me to live vicariously<\/p>\n clutching draft number two I disappear if I\u2019m at a house in the woods I read to the Gordon Setter <\/p>\n my creativity exhilarates me<\/p>\n a sassy word, a delicate word, tires me <\/p>\n if the man of the house is around, he will stand next to me eventually I will toss the writing aside\u2014love making on a good day the process repeats itself But if you insist on a rigid writing schedule one way to get started is using prompts: open a book or a magazine, or your own journal and grab a phrase that jumps out at you. Or look online many writers offer writing prompts. Maybe you\u2019ll write crap, but more often or not I would discover what I didn\u2019t know I needed to write about. Those writing exercises might even turn into a book.*see examples below<\/p>\n 7.\tSave your work until and if you feel a need not to save your work (I recycle often. Letting go.) Know what works for you.<\/p>\n 8.\tRevise, make it better\u2014research<\/p>\n 9.\tFind someone to be your writing confident, to share your work, even those awkward first drafts. By phone, by text, by email. This is not popular advice. But for me it\u2019s a letting go, it\u2019s being able to breathe after an intense period of writing. You may not be ready for criticism though, so let your friend know if you don\u2019t want feedback.<\/p>\n 10.\tDON\u2019T JUDGE YOURSELF DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF — KNOW YOURSELF. TRUST YOURSELF.<\/p>\n Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town<\/em>, wrote: keep your crap detector on and other interesting and perhaps helpful tidbits such as:<\/p>\n 1.\t\u201cI believe that a writer learns from reading possibilities of technique, ways of execution, phrasing, rhythm, tonality, pace. Otherwise, reading is important if it excites the imagination, but what excites the imagination may be found in any number of experiences (or in a lack of them).\u201d<\/p>\n 2.\t\u201cIn truth, the writer\u2019s problems are usually psychological, like everyone else\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n 3.\t\u201cThe initiating subject should trigger the imagination as well as the poem.\u201d<\/p>\n 4.\t\u201cIf you feel pressure to say what you know others want to hear and don\u2019t have enough devil in you to surprise them shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n 5.\tChapter 5 \u201cNuts and Bolts\u201d (tools as a writer): \u201cRead your poem many times. If you don\u2019t enjoy it every time, something may be wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat must I give more death to today,\/in order to generate more life.\u201d–Clarissa Pinkola Est\u00e9s 1\t\u201cBeing with real people who warm us, who endorse and exalt our creativity, is essential to the flow of creative life. Otherwise we freeze\u2026.Every woman is entitle to an Allelujia Chorus.\u201d<\/p>\n 2.\t\u201cArt is not just for oneself, not just a marker of one\u2019s own understanding. It is also a map for those who follow after us.\u201d<\/p>\n Basically using Jungian philosophy, she interprets fairy tales. And discusses the creative life. <\/p>\n How Dare We Write From workshops created by prompts: I wish you well in your journey as a writer. Your journey is not someone else\u2019s journey, your journey will have its ups and downs and exits and entrances, your journey may be well thought out or it may be mostly spontaneous trips to somewhere or nowhere. Be flexible. But also, be courageous. <\/p>\n I will end with this a quote from an earlier poem of mine:<\/p>\n \tWriters I admire break my heart because they have heartbreaking\/stories to tell and they tell them because they know there are others\/like me who want to hear them because our lives have been broken\/and we have stories that break hearts and broken hearts\/are open hearts and anything open can be filled\/with knowledge and possibility and full hearts must empty\/so stories are always coming and going.<\/em><\/p>\n *examples of poems initiated by writing prompts<\/p>\n IF I TOLD YOU THE TRUTH<\/strong> [each line could become another poem]<\/p>\n If truth be told my friend is a born-again Christian, my son is a redneck.<\/p>\n If truth be told, loneliness is my demon and always has been.<\/p>\n The truth is my sister does not talk to me my mood swings cause her stress; she\u2019s If truth be told, according to Mother, I am white, white, white, but I\u2019m not If truth be told I\u2019m not a writer, my advisor said so; she was wrong.<\/p>\n If truth be told I have been cloistered; it wasn\u2019t my calling but my situation.<\/p>\n If truth be told my car isn\u2019t safe, my house isn\u2019t breathing, I could in a wink of an eye be homeless.<\/p>\n If truth be told I\u2019ve fallen before, but this time the fracture wasn\u2019t worth mending.<\/p>\n If truth be told I want to sing.<\/p>\n If I told you the truth, I always wanted to be the clown the stand-up comedian the one no one If I told you the truth I wouldn\u2019t tell you the truth, but ease into your life.<\/p>\n If truth be told being of a certain age is not what someone else says it is, not what you expect, If truth be told you and I don\u2019t meet online, or in a bar, in the future, or the past.<\/p>\n The truth is tomorrow, I might leave my house, walk to the mailbox, but today I\u2019m in my pj\u2019s, eating popcorn, watching Netflix.<\/p>\n \u00a9Sherry Quan Lee Saint Patrick\u2019s Day 2017 (an event, what did it conjure)<\/p>\n Dear red hair son of the Irish plantation owner do you know how complicated you\u2019ve made my life? You, so bold in your southern ways. 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\u2019s mine? Ms. Greer kept your house clean and the both of you were surely well fed. And you, in return, paid her in lust, in rape, in children. I heard the rumors, that you loved her, my great grandmother, her glistening brown skin, her textured thick hair, strong legs, rough hands; but it wasn\u2019t a love story. Grandmother was born. She traveled North, I don\u2019t know how she escaped, and married a man with his own black white history and the babies kept coming. Maybe this was never my story and I am an imposter but there is this red head boy that haunts my dreams and this poem that dares to tell the truth. And my birth certificate: Mother\u2019s race Negro.<\/em><\/p>\n Sherry Quan Lee Reading THE COFFEE SHOP NE July 21, 2023 Intro: I Want Cake (bio) [see previous post of this poem] 1. There\u2019s something about writing, about being a writer, you can\u2019t retire from it, it\u2019s got a hold on you despite the fact you might \u201cwant cake.\u201d Once a writer always …<\/p>\n
\nno dirt, no money, no libido<\/p>\n
\ndark chocolate<\/p>\n
\nscrutinize the tone, the rhythm–the meaning <\/p>\n
\nbefore draft number one has finished printing <\/p>\n
\nto smoke a cigarette and read aloud <\/p>\n
\na word that sings, or words that singe<\/p>\n
\nlistening, smoking; he will touch me, kiss me, distract me <\/p>\n
\npart of the process<\/p>\n
\nand, again, I\u2019ve got cleaning and sex on my mind.–Sherry Quan Lee<\/p>\n
\nWomen Who Run With the Wolves <\/em><\/p>\n
\n1.\t30 contributors
\n2.\tEach story ends with a writing exercise
\n3.\t\u201c\u2026offers a much-needed corrective to the usual dry and uninspired creative writing pedagogy\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
\na.\tIF I TOLD YOU THE TRUTH
\nb.\tSt Patrick\u2019s Day 2017<\/p>\n
\ndone it before, stopped loving me when I loved a woman,
\nand my mother, well my sister stopped talking to her, too.<\/p>\n
\nand neither is she.<\/p>\n
\nwould guess wasn\u2019t me.<\/p>\n
\nevery day is a question mark.<\/p>\n
\nMarch 18, 2017<\/p>\n
\n\u00a9March 18, 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"