I have a student who has been writing with me since my first class at the Loft back in 2005. The class was called "Creative Workout," where I had students do all sorts of "creative" endeavors in and outside the classroom in order to work the inherent creative muscle and maybe get some writing out of the deal. It's vague, but memories I have include students running around the room as their toddler selves, drumming out their feelings on the table, and trying out something new and a bit risky out in their community and then writing about it. I had a lot of nerve. D likes to tell the story repeatedly about how much she didn't like me back then, how she thought I was out of my mind. Who did I think I was teaching writing, what with my flaky west coast ways, drumming and rhyming games that I often I used to teach poetry. Where did I think I was, the beach? Was this some sort of commune free-for-all love-in or was it a writing class?
Well, turns out, I grow on a person, or as D would say, "you wear on a person." Over the years we have written together privately and in my Friday Women's group, where she has gone from writing one page poems about her porch to epic personal essays in creative nonfiction about everything from running a discotheque with her husband in 1970s Minneapolis by night, teaching kindergarten by day, to "D + G Stories," which account for the daily mishaps that happen in a marriage, like butt-bumping in the kitchen when there isn't enough room for both of you. No matter what she writes about, she always wants more writing time, always returning to the table with a longing to write "because I love to write."
Together we have invented new forms of poetry (candy poems, yoga poems, etc), loving the simple permission we gave one another to make poetry out of just about anything. Together we have taken a walk to the corner on a hot summer day, hugged a tree, and returned to write about it. There are many memories, many stories. One day out of the blue she started writing erotica. Where did it come from? Who knew? It just showed up. And man, was it ever good. And it just kept on pouring out of her, endlessly. We later discovered she was on a healing journey, beginning, as she says, "to write the trauma out of my body."
About this I could go on and on. But not today.
One of the things I love so much about D is her tendency to rebel against my writing prompts. Each and every Friday when we write together, she will either flat out refuse my prompt or she will twist it into something much better. When I first started my blog, she went on about the lunacy of starting a "bog." When I proposed we all write some "spoken word," well, in classic form, D created a powerful piece of "open word," which I like a lot, lot better. And last week when I suggested we all write our memories of what had happened since we wrote together last, encouraging them to "write whatever pops into your mind and go with it because it will reveal important themes and energy..." she aptly named the exercise "pop-up stories." No beating around the bush there. Spoken like a true kindergarten teacher.
It is this simple and fresh twist on the everyday seriousness of adult speaking and thinking that I find so refreshing about her and her writing. It is her way of questioning, mindfully looking at the world, the moment. Having a little poetic fun with it. In fact, within this twist, this space of interpretation (misinterpretation, translation, reaction, etc) between what is and what we do and write with it, where your true writer's voice lives, the unique you-ness.
Oh, I could tell your reasons why this woman struggles with this, why she insists she is not a writer, why she cries out in frustration when she can't come up with fancier, more "writerly" words and ideas. But, no, I tell her, please don't! Please stay with you and your unique voice which is so original and fresh. It's what makes you a poet! Please don't go trying to sound like Jenny, whose writerly job is to sound like Jenny, not you! Please try not to compare! Stay with your unique voice, your truth, and from there you can write about anything. Plus, it's a lot easier that way.
That's the beauty of having so many writers. We could all be writing about the same moment and it would sound like symphony.
WRITE WITH ME? How does your unique voice and you-ness interpret the world? The moment?
What part of your voice and you-ness do you struggle to accept? What part do you love and embrace?
No comments:
Post a Comment