August 2023 - Workshop Shit!
August 2023 – Workshop Shit!
For the workshop this month, poets were encouraged to think about traveling. The excerpts below are all taken from longer works, and in each of them, the poet expresses a connection to travel in some way or another. Kalhil Gilbran describes the life of a traveler in The Farewell in an almost bittersweet light, depicting the lifestyle as an isolating one, shared and loved by only a lonely few. For Walt Whitman, the thought of travel is a joyful dream in Leaves of Grass, and a celebrated aspiration that connects one to a broader world. Byron hones in on the intimate and personal experience of travel in the below excerpt from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
From: The Farewell
By: Kalhil Gibran
“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way,
begin no day where we have ended
another day; and no sunrise finds us where
sunset left us.”
From: Leaves of Grass
By: Walt Whitman
“O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!
To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.”
From: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
By: Lord Byron
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.”
With these excerpts in mind, poets generated two lists: one of locations that one might travel to or from, and another list of motion verbs showing a manner of travel. With the first list in mind, and cognizant of the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste) poets then brainstormed using the graphic below to come up with images one might encounter in those locations. In our workshop the brainstorming section took on a life of its own, yielding creative and even comical results that demonstrated the comfort the poets had approaching the subject.
Place List:
1) Corsican Shoreline
2) A Podcast Studio
3) The principle’s office
4) An outhouse in the middle of the woods
5) Crazy Aunt’s Yoga Studio INC.
Verbs of Motion
1) Flying
2) Teleporting
3) Gamboling
4) Sauntering
5) Skulking
From here, poets took a fifteen-minute free-write to come up with prompt responses.
The Rules:
Examine the excerpts of the poems above, and think about how each writer experiences travel. If you wish to, feel free to research additional poems and poets, and examine their thoughts and experiences related to travel. What is travel to them personally? Is it a positive or negative experience? Is it a way of life, a fantasy, or an occasional adventure? And where are they as they talk about traveling?
Generate a list of locations that one might travel to. These locations can be as vague or specific as you want (anywhere from a specific corner of your kitchen to the empty void of outer space), and the trip that you might take there can be as epic or mundane as you like (anything from a Homeric-style odyssey to an everyday commute).
In addition to the locations list, start thinking about descriptive ways to describe getting from point to point by generating a list of motion verbs. Why stick with saying that someone went somewhere when you could say that they sauntered there or that they rushed there?
Start thinking about how to describe the locations you listed by generating images you might encounter there tied to the five senses. You can organize your thoughts using a graphic like the one above.
Spend fifteen minutes free-writing to come up with a response. Any length or style is fair game, and you don’t need to have found an ending after fifteen minutes. If you like what you came up with, and you want to share, feel free to post your response in the comments below.
Andrew’s Response:
When flying down the shoreline victory
Called home, away from mainland mountains,
Towards waves, tall ships, loud harbors, and free seas,
A spirit’s light of memories and pains.
Fresh salt that saunters in the breeze smells best:
Not someone else’s shit, nor fake cologne
That fills-up offices where cat hair rests,
Or toilets where you feel you’re not alone.
There are no quavering voices in the waves,
No necktie-lectures, boastings, no unease
About an image: height or breath; no gaze
That lists-off shames. Here fears are fears that please.
The heartbeat’s only yours: the sweaty red
Of water deeper than a lazy dread.