Alison McGhee's Blog, page 28

Another One-Day Creative Writing Kickstart class!

Greetings, writers and writerly types,

I’m offering a one-day creative writing workshop –Creative Writing Kickstart– on Sunday, April 14. The class will touch on various aspects of creative writing craft, but our main focus, now that the snow is (nearly) gone is to get the creative juices flowing.

In one afternoon, we’ll read and discuss some fabulous published works –poetry, memoir and fiction, with maybe a little children’s lit thrown in there– talk about what makes great writing great, and complete three or four short writing prompts.

The class is fun and low-key and designed for writers of all abilities, experience levels and genres. If you’re a longtime writer in need of a boost or someone who’s always had an interest in writing but never known how to sit down and get started, please join us! And please feel free to send this email to anyone else who might enjoy the class.

Limited to eleven. If you’re interested, please email me at alison_mcghee@hotmail.com to reserve a spot.

Date: Sunday, April 14

Time: 1-5 p.m.

Place: my house in the Uptown neighborhood of south Minneapolis. On-street parking is usually plentiful, and I’m three blocks from several bus stops in all directions.

Cost: $50.

Bring: yourself, a pen and a notebook. Water and some sort of tasty treat will be provided.

–

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Alison-McGhee/119862491361265?ref=ts

Manuscript Critique Service:

http://alisonmcghee.com/manuscript.html

Poem of the Week, by Mary Oliver

Excerpt from Work

- Mary Oliver

4.

All day I have been pining for the past.

That’s when the big dog, Luke, breathed at my side.

Then she dashed away then she returned

in and out of the swales, in and out of the creeks,

her dark eyes snapping.

Then she broke, slowly,

in the rising arc of a fever.

And now she’s nothing

except for mornings when I take a handful of words

and throw them into the air

so that she dashes up again out of the darkness,

like this–

this is the world.

–

For more information on Mary Oliver, please click here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/mary-oliver

–

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Alison-McGhee/119862491361265?ref=ts

Poem of the Week, by William Stafford

Remembering Brother Bob

- William Stafford

Tell me, you years I had for my life,

tell me a day, that day it snowed

and I played hockey in the cold.

Bob was seven, then, and I was twelve,

and strong. The sun went down. I turned

and Bob was crying on the shore.

Do I remember kindness? Did I

shield my brother, comfort him?

Tell me, you years I had for my life.

Yes, I carried him. I took

him home. But I complained. I see

the darkness; it comes near: and Bob,

who is gone now, and the other kids.

I am the zero in the scene:

“You said you would be brave,” I chided

him. “I’ll not take you again.”

Years, I look at the white across

this page, and think: I never did.

–

For more information on William Stafford, please click here: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/224

–

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Poem of the Week, by Sharon Olds

STATION

- Sharon Olds

Coming in off the dock after writing,

I approached the house,

and saw your long grandee face

in the light of a lamp with a parchment shade

the color of flame.

An elegant hand on your beard. Your tapered

eyes found me on the lawn. You looked

as the lord looks down from a narrow window

and you are descended from lords. Calmly, with no

hint of shyness you examined me,

the wife who runs out on the dock to write

as soon as one child is in bed,

leaving the other to you.

Your long

mouth, flexible as an archer’s bow,

did not curve. We spent a long moment

in the truth of our situation, the poems

heavy as poached game hanging from my hands.

For more information on Sharon Olds, please click here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sharon-olds

–

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Poem of the Week, by Heather Sellers

Unloose

- Heather Sellers

Fifth grade, summer of the green one-piece.

I was waiting out in front of the ymca, downtown

Orlando, and there was a man on a motorcycle

under the portico where Mom picked me up.

I was in the green suit like skin, barefoot

on the hot concrete. Dancing. For the first time

I could see how a man could have been a possible boy.

That was the day I didn’t step away, go back inside.

He had water-blue eyes, a long beard, no shirt,

and jeans I knew to be “bell-bottoms,” but they had

no bells. His body was muscle smooth,

like a horse. Those pants had seams running

down the center of the legs. Useless seams.

I could feel my finger wanting to . . .

Finger! I put it in my mouth. I put a second finger

in, like a baby. He held his helmet in his arm,

like a football. “Hi,” I said. But I meant

Can I ride? I meant around the parking lot. I meant

sit on the bike for one minute. I meant I don’t have

a real mother. (Where was my mother?)

I felt wings grow out of my back from the straps

of the green suit. I stepped toward his motorcycle,

stepped out of my story. I only wanted to prove that

I wasn’t afraid, wasn’t like her. He said, “No, it’s hot!”

Too late. I’d already pressed my knee against the silver pipe.

I heard the fizzle, the spit, felt

the bright pain and the shame. On my kneecap

that afternoon remains: Black heart of scar.

The beginning of the girl in two pieces.

 

- For more information on Heather Sellers, please click here: http://heathersellers.com/site/index....

Poem of the Week, by David Bottoms

In a U-Haul North of Damascus

- David Bottoms

1

Lord, what are the sins

I have tried to leave behind me? The bad checks,

the workless days, the scotch bottles thrown across the fence

and into the woods, the cruelty of silence,

the cruelty of lies, the jealousy,

the indifference?

What are these on the scale of sin

or failure

that they should follow me through the streets of Columbus,

the moon-streaked fields between Benevolence

and Cuthbert where dwarfed cotton sparkles like pearls

on the shoulders of the road. What are these

that they should find me half-lost,

sick and sleepless

behind the wheel of this U-Haul truck parked in a field

on Georgia 45

a few miles north of Damascus,

some makeshift rest stop for eighteen wheelers

where the long white arms of oaks slap across trailers

and headlights glare all night through a wall of pines?

2

What was I thinking, Lord?

That for once I’d be in the driver’s seat, a firm grip

on direction?

So the jon boat muscled up the ramp,

the Johnson outboard, the bent frame of the wrecked Harley

chained for so long to the back fence,

the scarred desk, the bookcases and books,

the mattress and box springs,

a broken turntable, a Pioneer amp, a pair

of three-way speakers, everything mine

I intended to keep. Everything else abandon.

But on the road from one state

to another, what is left behind nags back through the distance,

a last word rising to a scream, a salad bowl

shattering against a kitchen cabinet, china barbs

spiking my heel, blood trailed across the cream linoleum

like the bedsheet that morning long ago

just before I watched the future miscarried.

Jesus, could the irony be

that suffering forms a stronger bond than love?

3

Now the sun

streaks the windshield with yellow and orange, heavy beads

of light drawing highways in the dew-cover.

I roll down the window and breathe the pine-air,

the after-scent of rain, and the far-off smell

of asphalt and diesel fumes.

But mostly pine and rain

as though the world really could be clean again.

Somewhere behind me,

miles behind me on a two-lane that streaks across

west Georgia, light is falling

through the windows of my half-empty house.

Lord, why am I thinking about this? And why should I care

so long after everything has fallen

to pain that the woman sleeping there should be sleeping alone?

Could I be just another sinner who needs to be blinded

before he can see? Lord, is it possible to fall

toward grace? Could I be moved

to believe in new beginnings? Could I be moved?

–

For more information on David Bottoms, please click here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/david-bottoms

–

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Poem of the Week, by Mark Leidner

Things to Call Water

- Mark Leidner

friend of the cup

void soda

idiot’s vodka

fool’s oil

pipe sap

tap wine

faucet gumbo

boiler’s tool

baby of snow

steam’s mom

hot dog blood

“Cannonball!” shrapnel

diver’s excuse

island ender

navy gravy

torpedo media

The Artist Formerly Known as Ice

Dances with Eels

Señor Osmosis

drowner’s woe

world launderer

arsonist’s boycott

Cousteau’s milieu

hydrophobe’s gutcheck

“intern at the cistern”

tempest gristle

Odyssey sauce

hemisphere paint

the ghost in the sauna

the condensed mists of time

zodiac milk

casino preserves

stork’s anklets

periscope’s necktie

rowboat wingspan

catfish litterbox

starfish cathedral

turbulence skein

stream bacon

river luggage

crystal chowder

geyser sperm

fin wind

mer-air

loose frost

dank fire

blue flower



–

For more information on Mark Leidner, please click here: http://thermosmag.wordpress.com/2010/...

–

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NEW SECTION ADDED! One-day Creative Writing Kickstart class, Saturday, March 2

NOTE: NEW SECTION ADDED. SUNDAY, MARCH 3, SAME TIME, SAME EVERYTHING. PLEASE EMAIL ME AT alison_mcghee@hotmail.com IF YOU’D LIKE TO REGISTER.

 

Greetings, writers and writerly types,

I’m offering a one-day creative writing workshop –Creative Writing Kickstart– on Saturday, March 2. The class will touch on various aspects of creative writing craft, including point of view, chronology and tense, but our main focus is to get the creative juices flowing (it’s been a long winter).

In one afternoon, we’ll read and discuss some fabulous published works –poetry, memoir and fiction, with maybe a little children’s lit thrown in there– talk about what makes great writing great, and complete three or four short writing prompts.

The class will be fun and low-key and is designed for writers of all abilities, experience levels and genres. If you’re a longtime writer in need of a boost or someone who’s always had an interest in writing but never known how to sit down and get started, join us!

Limited to ten. If you’re interested, please email me at alison_mcghee@hotmail.com to reserve a spot.

Date: Saturday, March 2

Time: 12:30-4:30

Place: my house in the Uptown neighborhood of south Minneapolis. On-street parking is usually plentiful, and I’m three blocks from several bus stops in all directions.

Cost: $50.

Bring: yourself, a pen and a notebook. Water and some sort of tasty treat will be provided.

One-day Creative Writing Kickstart class, Saturday, March 2

Greetings, writers and writerly types,

I’m offering a one-day creative writing workshop –Creative Writing Kickstart– on Saturday, March 2. The class will touch on various aspects of creative writing craft, including point of view, chronology and tense, but our main focus is to get the creative juices flowing (it’s been a long winter).

In one afternoon, we’ll read and discuss some fabulous published works –poetry, memoir and fiction, with maybe a little children’s lit thrown in there– talk about what makes great writing great, and complete three or four short writing prompts.

The class will be fun and low-key and is designed for writers of all abilities, experience levels and genres. If you’re a longtime writer in need of a boost or someone who’s always had an interest in writing but never known how to sit down and get started, join us!

Limited to ten. If you’re interested, please email me at alison_mcghee@hotmail.com to reserve a spot.

Date: Saturday, March 2

Time: 12:30-4:30

Place: my house in the Uptown neighborhood of south Minneapolis. On-street parking is usually plentiful, and I’m three blocks from several bus stops in all directions.

Cost: $50.

Bring: yourself, a pen and a notebook. Water and some sort of tasty treat will be provided.

Poem of the Week, by Billy Collins

Memento Mori

- Billy Collins

There is no need for me to keep a skull on my desk,

to stand with one foot up on the ruins of Rome,

or wear a locket with the sliver of a saint’s bone.

It is enough to realize that every common object

in this sunny little room will outlive me–

the carpet, radio, bookstand and rocker.

Not one of these things will attend my burial,

not even this dented goosenecked lamp

with its steady benediction of light,

though I could put worse things in my mind

than the image of it waddling across the cemetery

like an old servant, dragging the tail of its cord,

the small circle of mourners parting to make room.

 

For more information on Billy Collins, please click here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/b...