Poetry Camp

Violet Nesdoly hosts the Poetry Friday Round up today at Violet Nesdoly / poems. Meeting Violet was one of my favorite moments of Poetry Camp. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of us together!

I seriously thought I was going to post this earlier in the week. Ha! What was I thinking? I have managed to unpack (although I still haven't found my night guard mouthpiece, yipes!) I haven't washed clothes yet. I haven't grocery shopped yet. (So grateful for a patient husband and a daughter who brought shepherd's pie that lasted two nights!) I did teach five yoga classes and I think I've mostly caught up on my sleep.

First let me just say Poetry Camp was amazing. My ride from Seattle to Bellingham was with Janet Wong's husband, Glenn Schroeder and Louisiana poet, Brod Baggert. Both have lawyer backgrounds, so I stayed entertained in the back seat listening to these two. Of course, my Eastern Time Zone body was screaming three in the morning! When Brod asked who were my favorite dead poets, it took a minute to remember their names. Theodore Roethke, Christina Rosetti, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ask me next week and I might come up with three different names.

I swiped this from Janet's Facebook page, so I have no idea who gets the photo credit.

I was both surprised and delighted when I stepped of the elevator at Western Washington University's library and Janet Wong said, "Hi, Doraine!" I mean, I knew who she was and I'd never seen her in person, but didn't really expect her to know me. Then there was the S'mores gauntlet greeting from Nancy Johnson's children's lit students.

After a tour of the library, Janet led forty poets in a discussion that ranged from performance poetry  to poetic forms and everything in between. Watching Janet's deft facilitation was as instructive as the discussion itself.

I love these two ladies, Irene Latham and Jeannine Atkins.

There was lunch with poets and the lovely connections we all made or renewed. There was a session on marketing/branding and social media. There was a session on conference proposals. There was talk about traditional and artisanal/boutique publishing. (We are deleting the "self-publishing" word from our vocabulary from here on!) Honestly, it was a bit like drinking from a fire hose.

Julie Larios led a writing workshop using Oulipo techniques for getting out of a writing rut. Basically it meant giving yourself specific constraints with the understanding that the constraints themselves force your brain to operate in a different way, letting the poem lead you. I was in a song-writing workshop earlier this summer where this same concept was the basis for creating a song.

Here's an example we actually worked on: Write a five line poem. The final vowel sound in each line must be a long a, e, i, o, and u.

How can she stay in this sun-deprived place?
She watches leaves on the elm sway in the breeze
and lifts her eyes to the graying sky,
weighing the distance she must go.
She spreads her wings and lifts toward blue. 

A fun first draft that I wouldn't otherwise have written. Maybe it will go somewhere, maybe it won't. Maybe I'll salvage a phrase or two. Who knows?

If you read my post yesterday on friends, this should have gone on that post, but that didn't happen. On the way to dinner with April Halprin Wayland and Nancy Bo Flood, I wrapped my arm through April's and said, "Help me out here. I'm feeling a bit like a fraud after sitting in the room the all those amazing poets." She just patted my arm and said, "We all have our own level of fraudulence to deal with." Maybe it never goes away, that feeling that you're just pretending to be a poet. But there's nothing for it but to keep writing.

New friends and other wonders! Nancy Bo Flood and Jone Rush MacCulloch.

Then on Saturday when the conference actually began, I stood as Janet called on the first twenty or so of us to stand and read our PFA poem. Mine lasts about ten seconds. Janet asked me to read it a second time. I was startled, but I read it again. Later a teacher came up to me and asked if I had read the "Our Blended Family" poem. "Yes," I told her. 

"Thank you so much," she said, "for writing that poem. Most of the students in my school come from blended families. I am so grateful to have a poem to read to them where they can see themselves."

I don't remember her name. I wish I hadn't been so surprised that I forgot to ask about her school. She made my day.

I told Janet and Sylvia that on Friday I felt a little like an imposter in the middle of all these rock stars. By the end of Saturday, I felt a little like a rock star, too.

 There's more, of course, but I'll save it for later.