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Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop: The Goods

2014 October 17
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The Writing Life

If you read my review last week, you know I was pretty impressed with Tin House’s Summer Writers Workshop this past July. Not only did I develop creative relationships and get some great feedback on my work, but I also left with a *few* reading suggestions. Okay, the reading list is ABSURD. But if you’re anything like me, and you believe that reading will improve your writing, then lists like these from people I hold in high regard are like gold. And so, I share the wealth:

Campbell McGrath – Capitalism (Wesleyan New Poets)

Campbell McGrath – American Noise (Ecco Press)

Campbell McGrath – Spring Comes to Chicago (Ecco Press)

          I have become a complete disciple of Campbell McGrath. No other voice (that I’ve found) encapsulates the identity of this nation, in this millennium, with as much subtlety, poise, and formal consideration as McGrath. 

Charles Wright – Bloodlines (Wesleyan Poetry Program)

D. A. Levy – Suburban Monastery Death Poem (Crisis Chronicles Press)

Dawn McGuire – The Aphasia Cafe (IFSF Publishers)

Derek Walcott – The Schooner Flight

Derek Walcott – Omeros

          My workshop group spent a good deal of time considering form. Omeros is an epic poem in terza rima, and our conversation of Derek Walcott, also led us to Edward Kamau Braithwaite—another poet attending to the African diaspora.

Edward Dorn – Gunslinger (Duke University Press)

Edward Kamau Brathwaite – The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy (Oxford University Press)

Edward Kamau Braithwaite – Mother Poem (1977)

Edward Kamau Braithwaite – Sun Poem (1982)

Ellen Bryant Voigt – Kyrie (W. W. Norton & Company)

Gwendolyn Brooks – “We Real Cool” (originally published in The Bean Eaters [1960])

          With Kevin Young as my workshop leader, sound and music were frequent topics in conversation. Poems like “We Real Cool” are concise examples of precision and rhythm in a poem. 

Jim Harrison – Letters to Yesenin (Copper Canyon Press)

Jo Ann Beard – “The Fourth State of Matter,” in The Boys of My Youth (Back Bay Books)

          Jo Ann Beard was a faculty member at the workshop. I haven’t read The Boys of My Youth yet, but if her prose is half as wise as her lecture was last summer, I expect to be blown away. 

Julia Story – Post Moxie: Poems (Sarabande Books)

June Jordan – “Poem About My Feelings”

Karen Volkman – Spar (University of Iowa Press)

Kevin Young – Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf)

Larry Levis – Wrecking Crew (University of Pittsburgh Press)

Matthea Harvey – Modern Life (Graywolf Press)

Maurice Manning – The Gone and the Going Away (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Muriel Rukeyser – “Effort at Speech Between Two People” (originally published in Theory of Flight [1935])

          Enjoy this poem here!

Natalie Diaz – My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press)

Paige Ackerson Keily – My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer (Ahsahta)

          Come on! With a title like that (My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer) how could you NOT want to dig into this book of poetry?!

Rochelle Hurt – The Rusted City (White Pine Press)

Sally Wen Mao – Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books)

T. Crunk  – Living in the Resurrection (Yale University Press)

Ted Berrigan – The Sonnets

          I admit, bashfully, that I did not know Ted Berrigan’s name before this summer. A “late Beat,” Berrigan became famous for The Sonnets, reissued by Grove Press in 1966, and influenced by T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

W. S. Merwin – Finding the Islands (San Francisco: North Point Press)

Walid Bitar – 2 Guys on Holy Land (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Wallace Stevens – Harmonium

Yusef Komunyakka- Copacetic (Wesleyan New Poets)

The Party Train: A Collection of North American Prose Poetry (New Rivers Press)

There you have it! Now I know what you’ll be reading this winter so… see you next spring! Speaking of which, if at any point between now and then you decide this workshop might be right for you, get your application in for the rolling admissions process. Scholarship applications are due March 25, 2015.

 

 

 

 

Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop: A Review

2014 October 10
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The Writing Life

This summer, a great and wonderful circumstance led me to the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop. Hosted by Tin House and housed on Reed College campus in Southeast Portland, Oregon, this workshop was the miracle I didn’t know I needed. It was the kick in the pants I didn’t ask for. Most of all, it was deeply touching, intellectually stimulating, and rife with endless seeds of inspiration!

Okay, I’m gushing clichés. But seriously, stick with me while I lay out the excellence which was #THWW14.

Tin House logo

I had the honor of participating in Kevin Young‘s Poetry workshop with eleven other poets. We ranged in age from 20 to 44 and came from all over the U.S.: Indiana, L.A., Florida, Albuquerque, Washington, Maryland, North Carolina, N.Y.C., Portland, OR., et cetera. We had six days of two-and-a-half hour workshops, and each day we workshopped two poets, each for an hour. In the remaining time, Young took requests. We wanted to know… everything: How to begin publishing seriously? What makes a good title? How does one improve & develop his/her writing process? And he obliged, graciously. However, what was so affirming about asking these questions was being in a room with other people who were wondering the same things I was. Furthermore, since the group was diverse and generous, we were able to offer each other heaps and heaps of advice, recommendations, and encouragement.

The community that we developed in the workshop classroom extended out onto the campus and throughout the rest of the week. As is always the case, I learned just as much chatting with my colleagues over lunch and in between lectures as I did during workshop. This was aided by the environment and atmosphere which were carefully crafted and supported by Tin House.

In addition to the workshop, each day held multiple opportunities for stimulating discussion and cross-genre consideration through lectures, seminars, and readings. This year’s faculty included: Matthew Zapruder, Mary Ruefle, Kevin Young, D.A. Powell, Jo Ann Beard, Nick Flynn, Robert Boswell, Dorothy Allison, Jonathan Dee, Anthony Doerr, Ann Hood, Kelly Link, Antonya Nelson, Dana Spiotta, Wells Tower, Joy Williams, Rachel Kushner, and Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. And several special guest writers and editors made themselves available, also through seminars, lectures, one-on-one sessions, and readings.  I attended lectures by: Lacy M. Johnson on the Chronology of Memoir, Bianca Stone on Ekphrasis and Poetic Comics, Ann Hood on How to Write a Kick-Ass-Essay, Jo Ann Beard on transfiguring the Personal into the Universal, Kevin Young on the Hoax Poem, Matthew Zapruder on “the meaning” of poetry, D.A. Powell on silence in poetry, and Mary Ruefle on the Imagination. Actually, I’m getting a little hot and bothered just thinking about the innovation and intensity of these conversations! These writers questioned me in ways I wasn’t ready for, and also on matters that I desperately needed to be challenged in. Obviously, I cannot speak highly enough of my experience with the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, but I also have to acknowledge that it’s not the only opportunity of its kind.

There are countless workshops, conferences, retreats, and residencies for writers each year, and each one offers a unique setting for creative exploration and development. Tin House’s workshop emphasizes networking and highlights the most current arguments and trends in Creative Writing. Other workshops and residences are more interested in creating a laboratory for the writing process. Still others offer interdisciplinary opportunities and even collaboration with other artists in residence. How wonderful and endless. Or, how overwhelming! If you’re thinking about pursuing an intensive writing experience, I suggest Poets & Writers’ database. (The Association of Writers & Writing Programs [AWP] also has a search engine, but I find it more difficult to navigate.) And you might think about asking yourself a few of the following questions as you vet your options:

What is my creative focus right now?

Do I have a specific project in mind?

What stage am I at in my process or project?

Do I need time & space for writing or revision? Or both?

Am I looking for feedback? What kind of feedback (peer, faculty, publisher)?

What is my budget?

What is my timeframe? What season would work best for me? How much time can I devote to this experience?

Clearly, there’s much to consider. And much to be gained. There’s more I’d like to share from my experience, but in the interest of readability, let’s call it a day. Tune in next week for “The Goods,” where I spill the beans about what Kevin Young, and other writers, think everyone should read.