Frances Mulinix 6/6/18 Frances Mulinix 6/6/18

#LGBTMonth: When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

For LGBT Month, we are focussing on the works of lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, transgender, and queer poets:

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

- Chen Chen

To be a good
ex/current friend for R. To be one last

inspired way to get back at R. To be relationship
advice for L. To be advice

for my mother. To be a more comfortable
hospital bed for my mother. To be

no more hospital beds. To be, in my spare time,
America for my uncle, who wants to be China

for me. To be a country of trafficless roads
& a sports car for my aunt, who likes to go

fast. To be a cyclone
of laughter when my parents say

their new coworker is like that, they can tell
because he wears pink socks, see, you don’t, so you can’t,

can’t be one of them. To be the one
my parents raised me to be—

a season from the planet
of planet-sized storms.

To be a backpack of PB&J & every
thing I know, for my brothers, who are becoming

their own storms. To be, for me, nobody,
homebody, body in bed watching TV. To go 2D

& be a painting, an amateur’s hilltop & stars,
simple decoration for the new apartment

with you. To be close, J.,
to everything that is close to you—

blue blanket, red cup, green shoes
with pink laces.

To be the blue & the red.
The green, the hot pink.

About Chen Chen

Born in Xiamen, China, Chen Chen grew up in Massachusetts. A PhD student at Texas University, Chen Chen is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), Kissing the Sphinx (Two of Cups Press, 2016), and Set the Garden on Fire (Porkbelly Press, 2015).

When I Grow Up won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and was long-listed for the National Book Award. He is a Kundiman Fellow. He is the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize (2014), New Delta Review's Matt Clark Award in Poetry (2014), the Joyce Carol Oates Award (2011), and a finalist of Narrative's 30 Below Contest (2014).

#WritingWednesday - Read to Become a Better Writer

Reading great fiction makes us richer and better able to navigate our own experience and our way in the world.

As Hannah Frankman explains, fiction offers us something we cannot experience in self-help, history, psychology books. Fiction enriches our lives. It allows us to encounter other people, comprehends patterns of evolution, causes us to see a larger picture, encounter the world in a different light, brings us to a deeper understanding - of ourselves, others, and the world around us.

The Walrus, a Canadian magazine dedicated to rich thinking and rich dialogue has a collection of wonderful stories that they have opened up online to readers in order to stimulate creativity and encourage readers to become writers. Here are some of their favourites:

The Queen of Zilch by Geneviève Pettersen

Greener Grass by Nadia Bozak

It Is I Who Styles Donald Trump by Lynn Crosbie

Three Tshakapesh Dreams by Samuel Archibald

Working Clean by Naben Ruthnum

Changling Girl by Alex Pugsley

Somewhere, a Long, Happy Life Probably Awaits You by Jill Sexsmith

The Rainbow Festival by Sean Michaels

Sources and Further Reading

The Importance of Reading Fiction

The Walrus

Whatever your aims, we can aid you in achieving your goals with our individualised approach and flexible sessions. Contact us:

Frances Mulinix 3/28/18 Frances Mulinix 3/28/18

Writing Wednesday: Amy Lowell

Amy Lowell was born on February 9, 1874, at her family's a ten-acre family estate of Sevenels in Brookline, Massachusetts. The youngest of five children, Her family was considered in the upper echelons of Boston society. Initially tutored at home, Amy went on to attend Boston private schools and traveled to Europe with her family. At the age of seventeen, she couped herself in Sevenels' immense library and studied literature.

With her mother and sister, she wrote Dream Drops or Stories From Fairy Land by a Dreamer in 1887 printed privately. Her poem “Fixed Idea” was published in 1910 by the Atlantic Monthly and several other poems were published in journals. In October of 1912 Houghton Mifflin published her first collection, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass.

Lowell was outspoken and controversial, building a career as a poet, publicity agent, collector, critic, and lecturer, joining the imagist movement and working to promote its principles.

Imagism

A reaction in part to romantisicm and Victorian poetry, Imagism was a movement in America and England that utilised specificity of language to evoke clear images for the reader. Haiku and tanka poetry were often influential for imagist poets as they too sought to freeze a moment in time. Adjectives are employed conservatively, selected to enhance the emotions and images evoked in the poem.

Ezra Pound is credited with being the founder of the movement however, its ideals were first developed by T.E. Hulme by 1908. Hulme spoke of the words of a poem being more than merely decorative but comprising the poem's essence.

Writing in the March 1913 issue of Poetry, F. S. Flint, quoting Pound, defined imagist poetry as:

Direct treatment of the “thing," whether subjective or objective.
To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome. - published “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste.”

By Spring of 1914 disputes arose within the movement and Pound distanced himself. Amy Lowell became the leader of the movement between 1915 and 1917 publishing three anthologies of poetry all under the name of Some Imagist Poets. Eventually, Amy Lowell also distanced herself from the Imagists and the poetry movement became part of the larger modernist movement. Lowell died on May 12, 1925, at Sevenels.

A Fixed Idea

- Amy Lowell

What torture lurks within a single thought
When grown too constant; and however kind,
However welcome still, the weary mind
Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught
Remembers on unceasingly; unsought
The old delight is with us but to find
That all recurring joy is pain refined,
Become a habit, and we struggle, caught.
You lie upon my heart as on a nest,
Folded in peace, for you can never know
How crushed I am with having you at rest
Heavy upon my life. I love you so
You bind my freedom from its rightful quest.
In mercy lift your drooping wings and go.

Sonnet

A sonnet is a 14 line poem with a variable rhyme scheme and traditionally in iambic pentameter. Here, Lowell uses the Petrarchan rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA CDCDCD. With such confinements, a sonnet is likened to a box and the aim is to transcend such confinements. The Petrarchan sonnet has a feeling of balance to it, being almost equally weighted into halves through its rhyme scheme. You will notice that Lowell isn't bound to the iambic pentameter rhythm. More contemporary poets have experimented with ways to push and bend the sonnet form to varying degrees. How might this form of meter convey the meaning of the poem?

Your Turn...

What occurs when a classic form is used to explore less typical subject matter?

Choose aspects of the sonnet form that you will use. Pick a specific emotion or moment in time and write your own sonnet using precision in your language. How can you make the rhythm of your poem like a musical phrase?

for other examples and more contemporary takes on the sonnet, see “Voiced Stops” by Forrest Gander and “Incandescent War Poem Sonnet” by Bernadette Mayers.

References and Further Reading

Poets.org: Amy Lowell

Poets.org: A Brief Guide to Imagism

Poetry Foundation: Learning the Sonnet

Whatever your aims, we can aid you in achieving your goals with our individualised approach and flexible sessions. Contact us:

Frances Mulinix 2/7/18 Frances Mulinix 2/7/18

#WritingWednesday What Can We Learn from Standup?

The other day I began watching Pete Holmes' comedy special Faces and Sounds on HBO. Sometimes I will play something in the background as sound to mask other, the more distracting central air, refrigerator, and old house noises. Pete Holmes quickly had my full attention. His incredible facial reactions and self-deprecating humour won me over. Something that is unique about his special in this era of Chappelle, Silverman, Minaj, Maron, Hart, Schumer ... and that is how clean his comedy was. I love shock controversy, I love comedy, but sometimes it's refreshing to find laughter in something that doesn't require me to throw my relatives out of the room beforehand.

Something He Said Stayed With Me:

"I'm a silly, silly fun boy, right?"

Well, that was so adorable I perked up and stopped working in order to listen.

"And one of the reasons is I've recalibrated my brain to reward me for the things I am doing, not the things I could be doing. And that's what I think you should do, that's one of the keys to happiness, love yourself for the things you are doing, not the things you could be doing [....] I don't mess with my joy quota [....] you gotta keep an eye on your joy quota"

This got me thinking about my own "joy quota." When do I intentionally gift myself moments of pleasure with intention and fully experiencing them in order to make a deposit into my joy account and truly allowing myself to laugh or feel joyful.

I sat down and tried to come up with a few:

Getting silly with my husband and giggling until my face hurts
My father-in-law's deceptively outrageous sense of humour
Shuffling my bare feet through carpet
Listening to this guy's ridiculous laugh (at 1:08:48)
Sitting in a hot tub, or better yet, attending a traditional Korean bath/spa
Creating art with my hands
Stretching in bed following a rare, long, deep sleep
Reading for pleasure
Listening to the 2 Dope Queens podcast
Standup comedy by Aparna Nancherla and Issa Rae
Thomas Haden Church in Divorce
Stephen Merchant in Hello Ladies
Pete Holmes in Crashing
Eugene Levy, his son Dan Levy, and Catherine O'Hara in Schitt's Creek

I love looking at these photos because I don't often get to see myself in the midst of experiencing joy. Not a posed selfie representation, but being captured in the midst of a spontaneous reaction. It reminds me that the right people bring out the best in me.

Standup comedy has a lot to teach writers of all persuasions. Most comedians are writers first and foremost, sweating over the wording of each joke in preparation for bringing those jokes to the stage and utilising body language, pace, pauses, pitch, inflection, emphasis, and a range of public speaking skills to connect with the audience and create a performance.

Comedians train themselves to be observers and writers - both requiring attention to detail. They typically look to their own experiences and interactions as raw material. They listen closely to how people speak in real life and record dialogue to use later. They understand that simply changing the order that information is given or the order of words will change something from an anecdote to an act.

Comedians must also understand human behaviour. In observing the world around them, in crafting their jokes, and in connecting with their audiences their comedy is only as good as their ability to "get it". Is anything as immediate as the feedback one gets from a set in front of an audience? While I have never done a standup as a comedian, in the course of MCing I have written and performed sets designed to elicit laughter. It can really be hit or miss at times, a joke that I have been gloating over is met with silence in the room. Something I throw out there off the top of my head requires me to pause and wait for the laughter to die down. Even in the course of conversation, notice what seems to just "work."

Comedy is about understanding the mechanics of what makes something funny in that language, which also incorporates an understanding of cultural and contextual nuance. Moroccan-French Comedian Gad Elmaleh is a celebrity in Europe who played to sold-out arena shows. Growing up in Morroco, Elmaleh speaks Arabic, French, and Hebrew. He decided to create a career in America, in English, which meant starting over.

Elmaleh made a film "10 Minutes in America," documenting his experience. The film explores how comedy doesn't translate, it is much more than simply transferring each word into the new language, jokes must be crafted from the ground up.

Comedians Must Have Deep Knowledge of:

Language - including puns, turns of phrase, and the mechanics of what makes something funny
Body language and facial expressions
Verbal gesticulations - a well-placed sound can put an audience in stitches
Cultural sensibilities - including cliches and stereotypes
Specific audience - the community, the venue, the night

Writing Practice

A. Exercise 1:

This week, listen and/or watch some comedians and play close attention to their set-ups and wording. Better yet, compare a comedian telling the same joke during a different performance. Notice how the order of words are changed in order to become more effective jokes or how segues evolve to better introduce the new subject matter.

B. Exercise 2:

Pick a short personal story that you like or have told to friends and family.
Write it out, aiming for around 250 words.
Now use 100 words to tell the story.
Then tell it in 50 words.
Now 25 words.
Write it using 140 characters.

Achieving a full stand-up routine is so difficult because a successful set is so condensed. Amateur comedians (and writers) often have extraneous detail that derails the joke, lowers the energy, or occludes the narrative. Learning to generate material and then filter and compress it is a powerful skill. Learning to be concise and to choose each word for its ability to convey meaning will transform your writing.

C. Exercise 3:

Pick a story out of the newspaper and cast yourself in the story. For example, a government turns into a metaphor for a dysfunctional family, a silly local incident becomes something your cousin did, an episode involving a celebrity mirrors something you have done. Do not try to be funny, just go for 10.

Further Resources

Gold Comedy

Whatever your aims, we can aid you in achieving your goals with our individualised approach and flexible sessions. Contact us:

Frances Mulinix 1/24/18 Frances Mulinix 1/24/18

#WritingWednesday Cowboy Poetry and the National Gathering

Cowboy poetry emerged from the tradition whereby workers on ranches and cattle drives would gather together at the end of a day, sit around a fire and decompress by extemporaneously composing and sharing songs, stories, and poems.

It is important to recognise that this is a contemporary, evolving poetic form as cowboy culture is still alive and well. It is not a historical form such as Victorian, Renaissance, or Romantic poetry.

Romantic in style, cowboy poetry retains its realism. Thematically, cowboy poetry may describe funny events, the work of cowboys, tales of people and events from the past, expressions of cowboy values, criticisms of new technologies and culture and Western landscapes, livestock, and lifestyles,.

Structure: Traditionally a cowboy poem is:

Written by cowboys, ranchers or those familiar with the lifestyle
Rhymed, metered verse often in couplets (free verse is uncommon)
Written to be recited aloud

Keep in mind, these aren't hard rules, poetry isn't formulaic and cowboy poetry is evolving. Once you understand the form, you will appreciate exceptions to it.

No Rest for the Horse - Anonymous

There's a union for teamster and waiter,

There's a union for cabman and cook,

There's a union for hobo and preacher,

And one for detective and crook.

There's a union for blacksmith and painter,

There is one for the printer, of course;

But where would you go in this realm of woe,

To discover a guild for the horse?

He can't make a murmur in protest,

Though they strain him both up and down hill,

Or force him to work twenty hours

At the whim of some drunken brute's will.

Look back at our struggle for freedom—

Trace our present day's strength to its source,

And you'll find that man's pathway to glory,

Is strewn with the bones of the horse.

The mule is a fool under fire;

The horse, although frightened, stands true,

And he'd charge into hell without flinching

'Twixt the knees of the trooper he knew.

Photographer: Alessandro Passerini — Photographer: Alessandro Passerini

When the troopers grow old they are pensioned,

Or a berth or a home for them found;

When a horse is worn out they condemn him,

And sell him for nothing a pound.

Just think, the old pet of some trooper

Once curried and rubbed twice a day,

Now drags some damned ragpicker's wagon,

With curses and blows for his pay.

I once knew a grand king of racers,

The best of a cup-wining strain;

They ruined his knees on a hurdle,

For his rider's hat covered no brain.

Photographer: Andrej Sevkovskij — Photographer: Andrej Sevkovskij

I met him again, four years later,

On his side at the foot of a hill,

With two savages kicking his ribs,

And doing their work with a will.

I stroked the once velvety muzzle,

I murmured the old name again,

He once filled my purse with gold dollars;

And this day I bought him for ten.

Photographer: Anneke Paterson — Photographer: Anneke Paterson

His present address is "Sweet Pastures,"

He has nothing to do but eat,

Or loaf in the shade on the green, velvet grass,

And dream of the horses he beat.

Now, a dog—well, a dog has a limit;

After standing for all that's his due,

He'll pack up his duds some dark evening,

And shine out for scenes which are new.

But a horse, once he's used to his leather,

Is much like the old-fashioned wife;

He may not be proud of his bargain,

But still he'll be faithful through life.

And I envy the merciful teamster

Who can stand at the bar and say:

"Kind Lord, with the justice I dealt my horse,

Judge Thou my soul today."

from Songs of Horses, 1920

The Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering (Elko, Nevada) started 33 years ago as a place for cowboys and ranchers to gather and a love of poetry. It was later renamed by Congress as the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. This annual event has become a destination for thousands of folks to gather and share in a love of the West and cowboy culture over six days of poetry, music, dancing, workshops, exhibits, discussions, food and friendship. The event blends tradition and history with contemporary rural culture.

This year's event will take place January 29-February 3, 2018, with the theme "Basques & Buckaroos: Herding Cultures of Basin, Range and Beyond.”

Also, mark you calendars as the 17th annual Cowboy Poetry Week falls on April 15-21, 2018 (April is poetry month)!

Sources and Further Reading

National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

Cowboy Poetry

Images from: National Geographic: Horse

Whatever your aims, we can aid you in achieving your goals with our individualised approach and flexible sessions. Contact us:

Frances Mulinix 1/10/18 Frances Mulinix 1/10/18

NYC Midnight's 12th Annual Short Story Challenge

Calling All Writers and Aspiring Writers on this #WritingWednesday!

Be sure to join NYC Midnight's 12th Annual Short Story Challenge before their deadline on the final entry deadline of January 25, 2018! This creative writing competition is open to writers around the world.

There are 3 rounds of competition. In the 1st Round (January 26 to February 3, 2018), writers are placed randomly in heats and are assigned a genre, subject, and character assignment. Writers have 8 days to write an original story no longer than 2,500 words. The judges choose a top 5 in each heat to advance to the 2nd Round (March 29 to April 1, 2018) where writers receive new assignments, only this time they have just 3 days to write a 2,000 word (maximum) short story. Judges choose finalists from the 2nd Round to advance to the 3rd and final round of the competition where writers are challenged to write a 1,500 word (maximum) story in just 24 hours (May 11 to 12, 2018). A panel of judges review the final round stories and overall winners are selected.

Every writer receives feedback from the judges for every story submitted, and a special review forum is available for the participants to submit their stories for review from fellow writers throughout the competition.

In each Round, writers are assigned a Genre, Subject and Character assignment for their stories. All stories must be created within the competition periods and must include the Genre, Subject and Character assignment. The story must be written in the assigned genre. The list of potential genres is Action/Adventure, Comedy, Crime Caper, Drama, Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Ghost Story, Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Political Satire, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Sci-Fi, Spy, Suspense, Thriller, and Open Genre. The assigned subject must be integral to the plot of the story. The assigned character must be a relevant character used in the story. The Genre, Subject and Character assignments will be different for each Heat in each Round of the competition.

You can read the rest of the rules here and sign up here.

This group also does a Screenwriting Challenge, Flash Fiction Challenge, and Short Screenplay Challenge, so be sure to join their newsletter.

Whatever your aims, we can aid you in achieving your goals with our individualised approach and flexible sessions. Contact us:

Frances Mulinix 11/29/17 Frances Mulinix 11/29/17

#WritingWednesday with Bruce Weigl

I love to discover a new writer who leaves me feeling as if I have just unwrapped a precious new gift. This is one of the reasons I enjoy reading anthologies of short stories or poetry. It's like speed dating or a tasting menu, you don't have to worry about the consequences of a long-term commitment, trying to find a convenient excuse to go home or staring longingly at your friend's meal.

“Say it clearly and you make it beautiful, no matter what”

— Bruce Weigl

Discovering a writer that I had not read before is unwrapping an unexpected and valuable gift. Bruce Weigl is a recent discovery of mine. I read one of his poems, and then another, and I knew I wanted to read all of his work. I see in his poetry an economy of words that belie the richness of images he creates. I like to form an idea of the writer through reading their work, then learn about them. It is essential to engage with the person, their background and aims in order to fully engage with their work.

I formed an image of a poet who contemplates, sees things clearly, and acts with deliberation. The word "Buddhist" sprang to mind. Imagine my sense of satisfaction when, in conducting a cursory research into Weigl, I discovered that he does have a Buddhist practice. According to him, his experience fighting for the American army in Vietnam as an 18-year-old both, "ruined my life and in return gave me my voice” The Circle of Hanh, 2000), and I certainly hear the "wounded warrior" throughout his work, a perspective with which I am familiar as some who has lived and worked with veterans.

In admiration, here are a few of Bruce Weigl's exquisite poems. Look at how Weigl uses language, builds imagery, employs repetition, and evolves his theme over the poem. Pick an element of his writing that you will incorperate into your own this week.

Home - Bruce Weigl

I didn’t know I was grateful
for such late-autumn
bent-up cornfields

yellow in the after-harvest
sun before the
cold plow turns it all over

into never.
I didn’t know
I would enter this music

that translates the world
back into dirt fields
that have always called to me

as if I were a thing
come from the dirt,
like a tuber,

or like a needful boy. End
lonely days, I believe. End the exiled
and unraveling strangeness.

Dead Man, Thinking - Bruce Weigl

i.
Snow geese in the light of morning sky,
exactly at the start of spring. I was
looking through the cracks of the blinds at my future which seemed
absent of parades, for which I was grateful,
and only yesterday

I watched what an April wind could do
to a body wrapped in silk,
though I turned my eyes away,
the way the teacher says,
once the beauty was revealed.

ii
How long it takes to die, in the fifty-fifth year
is what I thought about today.
I told some truths so large, no one could bear to hear them.
I bow down to those who could not hear the truth.
They could not hear the truth because they were afraid
that it would open a veil into nothing.
I bow down to that nothing. I bow down to a single red planet
I saw in the other world’s sky,
spinning,
as if towards some
fleshy inevitability.

I bow down to the red planet. I bow down
to the noisy birds, indigenous to this region.
Only sorrow can bend you in half
like you’ve seen on those whose loves have gone away.
I bow down to those loves.

Your Turn

A valuable way to develop as a writer is to be a voracious reader and devourer of creative work. Take the week to "supplement" your creative diet by intentionally seeking out and soaking up art over the next few days. Read aloud a poem or selection by a writer you admire before sitting for 5 minutes and commencing your writing practice.

#WritingWednesday - Writing Discipline with Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is going to help me with this one because he is going to effectively be my guest blogger last Saturday.

We are going to talk about the core element of writing - WRITING! Before we can worry about style, plot, subject, narrative, character, your unique voice, editing, or sharing, you must begin putting pen to paper. Or fingers to keyboard. Or crayon to napkin. Consciously and with discipline.

I like the metaphor of textile manufacturing. Whether you aspire to create a breath-taking ballgown, sharply tailored suit, stylish jeans, winsome blazer, provocative lingerie, or practical anorak, you cannot begin without fabric. For example, once cotton is harvested, it goes through the ginning process where dirt, leaves, and stems are removed. Compressed and transported, the bales are opened ("fluffed"), scutched (seeds removed), carded, combed, drawn, spun, and plied before being dyed or printed then cut and sewn into clothing. At several stages, impurities are removed from the fibres and a higher quality fabric results from further processing. However, before we can envision a resulting garment, we need to practice harvesting raw fibre and working it into fabric.

In service of this, we are going to practice 3 strategies this week. Before we worry too much about building muscles, we are going to get into the routine of exercise.

1. Write. Each Day. Every Day.

The mental gymnastics we can put ourselves through in order to avoid writing can be incredible. As Neil Gaiman says, we like to imagine that little elves will do the work for us, finishing or beginning.

We need to take the drama out of the act of writing. Set a timer for five minutes each day this week and write without pause. If you don't know what to write about, pick something from your day (or the one before) and start there. Or write about what it's like to write in that moment. If your mind wanders into another association, follow it there. If your mind gets stuck on an image or word, stay with it, repeat it, add another element to it. There is no way to "mess this up" as long as your pen (or finger, or crayon) is moving.

2. Write. Then Do Everything Else.

We are going to practice discipline. Start the day with your new five-minute habit, or start the major portion of your day (if coffee must come first). After this week, you may choose to put longer writing sessions at a different time of day, but finding a few minutes to start your day this week should not be a major disruption.

It helps to have a ritual around writing - a favourite pen, a fancy notebook, a lit candle, a cup of tea. Pick ONE thing this week that you will use as your ritual element on which to anchor this habit. Otherwise, an involved ritual will become yet another escape and delay tactic. Then, know what you are going to do when you are done writing. Have something that you desire to get done slated for after your writing practice (a delicious breakfast perhaps, or a big X on your calendar to celebrate that you wrote today)!

3. Write Something After Doing Nothing

Commencing day three and for the remainder of the week, add a three-minute conscious daydream beforehand. Set the timer for three minutes to simply. This is not meditation but active daydreaming. It takes practice:

Take a deep breath.
Feel your body in the chair.
Think about your day. Think about the weather. Think about that annoying neighbour.
Let your mind wander undirected for three minutes.
Then set the timer for five minutes and write.

We will check in next week!

Whatever your aims, we can aid you in achieving your goals with our individualised approach and flexible sessions. Contact us: