Poetry Workshop with Ellen Kort

On Saturday, October 8, I was sitting with three dozen poets listening to the great, gentle Ellen Kort share her wisdom,

Kort was Wisconsin's first poet laureate serving 2000-2004, with Denise Sweet following her from 2004-2008. An interesting bit of dark triva: Governor Scott Walker terminated the position of poet laureate in February of this year, ending the term of our third laureate, Bruce Dethlefsen. Dethlefsen, along with the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission, is seeking to sustain the role through non-profit support.

We didn't meditate on politics together, however; we jumped right into poetry exercises. Kort's first admonishment for us was to Love Ourselves in our poems. "Don't beat yourself up," she said, "no matter where you are."

Our first task, then, was to write a poem called "Autobiography." Her challenge was for us, along with being kind with ourselves, to write as fast as we could without thinking about what came out.

We shared the resulting "spillings" as we felt moved. Part of mine reads,

I am not what you think I am.
Wide eyes suggest a cartoon-watching
cocoa-puff munching, mall-loving, hair-curling--
Okay, I do curl my hair. My spirit curls
iron, though, ripped
with muscles, reps upon reps I heave,
working out with weights of patience,
of self-sacrifice
of watching others,
and of listening.
I am leathered skin, long exposed
I am feet crusted with mud
I am callouses
and I am sweat running down a ropish neck
I am the creases between eyebrows when no guiding star is found,
and I am the start of a smile
as an evening breeze startles the wanderer
with its cooling hand.

Sharing our spillings brought the group close--some stumbled as they read their scribbles, others read strong, tight pieces that felt fully-formed.

We were all encouraged to start with spills. That's how most of Korts poems begin, she confided. She said she thinks to herself, "Oh, I should write about that," and she spills. What a good reminder for us future NaNoers, yes? Just spill.

Next, we were encouraged to think about where we are in our family. She read her poems "Seeing Is Believing" and "Drumming," and then"First Ties: The Father in the Mirror" by Bill Meissner. Here is a portion of Meissner's beautifully captured image:

Nothing to a tie, he said.
For those few seconds, his big arms were my arms--
I watched his thick fingers
working the tie,
each time a little
too short or too long.
He leaned his face alongside mine,
And I smelled a sharp scent of Old Spice, heard the hiss of sighs
through his nose, like a car tire losing air,
as he focused on the broad, wrinkled pillar
that would not tie.
Arms that hadn't surrounded me for years
now wrapped me like ribbons. I couldn't pull away
from the rough kiss of whiskers
against my smooth cheek.

The last exercise was the most difficult for me to participate in, but the most enjoyable to listen to. Kort read three poems, each personifying an abstract noun. She had Commitment wearing sensible shoes; Pleasure was underestimated--laughing too loud and drinking too much; and Imagination--oh, what was she like? I think she wore yellow.

We were asked to choose an abstract noun and personify it, and boy, my brain just shut down. I tried giving Truth an irridescent coat that winked new shades as one walked near him. I let Criticism feel tired, wearing sweatpants, looking expectantly out the window for someone who never comes. I couldn't make it work. But my classmates! They blew me away! Modesty wore sweeping skirts and never asked questions, but a silver toe ring and an emerald pendant flashed at a careful watcher. Curiosity was a three-year-old, sleeping nightly on a soft pillow of no judgment. Betrayal met a girlfriend for coffee, warmed her into confiding, and then stabbed her friend's back while hugging her goodbye. Certainty mowed his yard at right angles and wakes late at night but won't talk about it. Contradiction was that uncle--not the favorite one--who started fights at family dinners. They were so fantastic. How I wish we could get a compilation of those poems--a little keepsake from sharing a bright blue October morning with some gifted writers.

Some last words of wisdom that Kort shared were
Don't justify what you write to yourself or to others.
Do not whine about not having time or energy.
Do not repeat a line at the end in attempt to add weight or significance. Let the verbs and nouns you've used throughout the poem do that work.
And do not undercut a fine poem with a last line of humor. Good funny poems are a joy; but tacking a joke on the end of serious poem rarely works.

What a morning of wisdom! Thank you so much, Ellen Kort, for passing your knowledge and experience on to us. And thank you to the FVUUF for hosting the workshop. It was a truly inspiring morning.

I'll end with a poem by Ellen Kort.

Argument

She didn't talk to him
for an entire day
lost herself in a book
to avoid looking at him
and when he asked why
she told him to leave her alone

He slammed the cupboard doors
flipped through the TV channels
looking for football wrestling
NASCAR He turned the volume up
hoping she'd come downstairs
so he could tell her
he was pissed really pissed

She took the dog for a walk
He fell asleep in the chair
She took a long hot bath
He smoked a cigarette
She made herself a salad
He friend a hamburger
They moved in and out
of the kitchen careful
not to brush against each other
She ate at the table a candle
burning in the center
He at in the living room
by the light of the television

And the anger was delicious

Poetry Sunday

I've been thinking about Kay Ryan more these last several days.

A few nights ago, I spent hours scouring writers' blogs. By the end of the evening, I couldn't help but wonder what she would say about our blogging community. In some writing/blogging circles, the idea of building followers is imperative. The idea of creating blogging gimmicks to attract readers is mandatory. The skill of commenting personally yet wittily on each blog you follow is an absolute necessity.

How would Kay handle herself in this world? The answer clearly abides in her choice to stay far removed from it. She does not tweet or blog; she loathes the idea of modern 'mentors' and 'workshopping.' She has never taken or taught a creative writing class. She lives quietly, teaches remedial English, hikes in the desert. No tenure and guest speaking at great universities. No gimmicks. No ambitions beyond living truthfully to herself and to her art.

It's interesting that her privacy may have hampered her success. One article suggests that Ryan's work may have taken decades to attract wide readership in part by her lack of literary connections. But is that such a bad thing? She has said, "I think the people who become the most interesting writers are always going to come from, in some sense, desperate circumstances. There is a great deal of very private testing that has to happen in a writer. It has to be faced. I'm not sure it is good idea to hold hands with others too much."

Holding hands. That's what we're doing as we network on the internet and attend luncheons and retreats. In a way, attending these events is, to me, delightful. And in a way it is, for me, imperative. I don't know that I would have carved out the time necessary to write a novel if Laini hadn't gathered us up and cheered us on. I wouldn't have continued if Jennie and Jay and jldy didn't keep holding my hands through April.

But as I consider Kay Ryan tonight, I wonder what it would take to become a "most interesting writer."Stop blogging? Stop reading blogs? No; I like you guys too much. :) I will stay devoted to a small circle of lovelies whom I enjoy and find inspiring. But I won't believe it when I hear folks say a new writer has to blog, has to have hundreds of followers. We don't have to. We can succeed without them. I think what our poet laureate can teach me is to rely on the wind and the desert, the cup in my hand and the dog howling out back . . . rely on the world to shape my writing, not the computer. And rely on myself to succeed--but, oh, how daunting that sounds.

I will try to blend my delight for connection and need for support with the reality of a writer's inevitable private testing. I'm certain I will not grow roots as deep as Ryan's, but I'll trust I'll blossom sweetly, all the same. :)

Outside Art

Most of it's too dreary
or too cherry red.
If it's a chair, it's
covered with things
the savior said
or should have said--
dense admonishments
in nail polish
too small to be read.
If it's a picture,
the frame is either
burnt matches glued together
or a regular frame painted over
to extend the picture. There never
seems to be a surface equal
to the needs of these people.
Their purpose wraps
around the backs of things
and under arms;
they gouge and hatch
and glue on charms
till likable materials--
apple crates and canning funnels--
lose their rural ease. We are not
pleased the way we thought
we would be pleased.

Poetry Sunday

Editor and blogger Molly O'Neill occasionally celebrates 'Poetry Friday' by sharing a favorite poem with her readers. I find that little tradition completely lovely and wish to adopt it.


Kay Ryan is a poet who reminds me so much of Annie Dillard: a rooted muser, a wit and a wonderer, but never the fool. To get to know her better, enjoy an essay she wrote in 2005 about her experiences at that thing she dreads the most, the Writers Conference. Some snippets I cherish--


On the old way of mailing one's writing to an editor:

Whether or not I started out liking the patient discipline of this exchange, I came to like it. It slowed me down. If I’d gotten those poems back at email speed, say, they wouldn’t have been away long enough for me to lose hope the way you need to. You really shouldn’t be living for a reaction all the time. I also liked the fact that there were no faces or voices; we were all disembodied, writer and editor alike. Just the slow old mail. I wanted my poems to fight their way like that. Fight and fight again. No networking, no friends in high places, no internships. I think that’s how poems finally have to live, alone without your help, so they should get used to it.


On writers' workshops:

I have to assume that the writer respects these other writers’ opinions, and that just scares the daylights out of me. It doesn’t matter if their opinions really are respectable; I just think the writer has given up way too much inside. Let’s not share. Really. Go off in your own direction way too far, get lost, test the metal of your work in your own acids.


On poetry readings in an auditorium of hundreds of listeners:

But what could you tell about anybody’s poetry in this big-top atmosphere? The room is all out of proportion with how poetry works. The pressure is all wrong. This place is right for revivals and mass conversions, for stars and demagogues. I don’t think I’d trust poetry that worked too well here. Aren’t the persuasions of poetry private? To my mind, the right sized room to hear poetry is my head, the words speaking from the page.


:)


Here is her poem, "That Vase of Lilacs," to celebrate the budding of ours.


That Vase of Lilacs


Not just lilacs
are like that;
other purples also
leave us vacant
portals, susceptible
to vagrant spirits.
But take that vase
of lilacs: who goes
near it is erased.
In spite of Proust,
the sense don't
attach us to a place
or time: we're used
by sweetness--
taken, defenseless,
invaded by a line
of Saracens,
Picts, Angles,
double rows of
frangrance-loving
ancients--people
matched casually
by nose in an
impersonal and
intermittent immortality
of purple.