This poem was written by Eve Loewe, age almost 10
Sad,
Scared,
Mad,
He’s in the hospital
Why did it happen to him?
Looking across the room
Wires
Running through him
Everywhere on his body
Worried,
Lonely,
Hopeless,
Choking
“Is he going to make it?”
Walking over to him
Fists
Clenched
Wanting to punch something
Heart beating
Like i just ran a marathon
Lost in the world,
Heart broken,
Dreadful,
Sitting in a chair
Holding his moist
Clamy hands
Clutching
The cold
Hard
Metal bed
Why don’t they have a cure for this
Awful
Horrible thing
One fatal moment at a time
All we can do now is wait
Wait
Wait
I guess thats all we can do.
Grandpa’s
Stroke.
I just completed reading the novel, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, written completely in vignette form. The Vignette is defined as, a short descriptive literature focusing on a particular moment or person. It wasn’t the first time I’d read something utilizing this technique, though it was the only book I’ve ever read that was written that only used this and no other form. I was drawn to the book because of it’s subject, a memoir detailing a woman’s life, her youth, and her dysfunctional family. By far, subject matter that I have always found pretty successful in terms of memoir. Since I am a Poet I’d like to think my sensibilities value the short, the economic nature of language.
The vignette is comparable to me in so many ways of a prosaic poem. It is often in these types of poems that I am immediately inundated with a sense of urgency and energy that lacks sometimes in poems that follow a more defined structure. There is a power, an inertia behind the movement in the details and in the breakdown of poetic language. What made the Glass Castle so memorable for me was how this form could translate so easily individual ideas and thoughts that made each memory so instinctively unique. It was similar in so many ways to the classic coming of age template, but in this shape and form it took on a significantly different meaning.
Over the past few years I have been struggling to write and draft the life of my own mother. I have told numerous people of my desire to ghost write her autobiography, to somehow chronicle her life so that I may also tell of my own. I have always had such a hard time building what I would qualify as “chapters.” Instead I have been daunted with the task of retelling a life that has come to me in small broken pieces, information gathering has been my largest barrier. Yet, after reading The Glass Castle I feel as though I could develop my mothers memories much more efficiently, since I lack the craft of chapter formulations most nonfiction/fiction writers may utilize.
I am officially heading forward in my attempt to ghost write my mothers memoirs now in this form of the vignette. It feels really satisfying to have finally come upon a technique that is so full of possibilities, feels unapologetic and can allow me to divide my abilities as a poet into perhaps something that can exist on the borders, on the fringe and in the end; in the form of a novel.
We’ve tried for a long while to get a poetry group up and running at the studio. Thanks to instructor Paige Warren, we’ve finally done it!
This fall we had a short-run Poetry Workshop that had amazing group of writers. Amazing and prolific! Here’s just one very short example from longtime StoryStudio writer, Kelley Clink:
October 30, 2008
Ladybug
shells—
look again
Not as
empty
as I’d
imagined
But
slow moving
on
cold legs
Always be a poet, even in prose. ~Charles Baudelaire
Writing a novel is like building a house, with similar concerns about foundation, structure, architecture, logical process, and so forth. If you’re building an entire house, you might have moments of zen-like concentration as you engage in each task, but you might also keep all the big questions of structure and form in your head as you put up drywall and check levels.
Writing a poem, though, is like building a garden wall, stone by stone. As you work, you hold each stone in your hand, feeling its texture and weight, without bigger questions like “What is this?” and “Where is it going?” to distract you from your task. It’s a wall, you answer quietly. It’s going along the back of the garden. Now pay attention to how each stone fits against each other stone, how they grow warm in the sun.
Years of writing poetry gave me a mason’s knowledge of words, even as I tackled the larger questions of structure, plot, and pacing. Now, when I get stuck in fiction, I go back to my roots and consider my prose from a poetic standpoint, or write poetry in a character’s voice, or distill the meat of the chapter into verse. I turn to poetry for truth.
We have seldom been in such dire need of poetry. ~Mark Baechtel
Luckily, StoryStudio is offering a 4 Week Poetry Workshop to reground us in the stones and bricks of worldbuilding. Whether you’re a poet at heart, or a fiction writer who doesn’t spend enough time digging around in the dirt of words and lines, the Poetry Workshop will help you play with words.
Do you find yourself doodling poems in the margins of your notebooks? Chat about your inspiration and perspiration in the Writer’s Lounge.
For the next ten weeks of my life the words StoryStudio Chicago will not be in my weekly planner. For the next ten weeks I will be working for an after school program called, Words@Play facilitated by the Chicago Parks and Recreation and also the Chicago Children’s Humanities Festival. I am super psyched for the chance to teach in this award winning program, but am sad to see myself absent from the studio. I will be working my regular 40 hour a week position at a local women’s non profit as an assistant grant writer and also working a residency with Hands on Stanza’s for the Poetry Center of Chicago. So it’s not like I will be sitting on my duff while missing out on my shifts here. Though I’m desperately at a loss with knowing I won’t be using my pink key to open up the studio for a night of classes.
When I made the decision to temporarily leave my post here at StoryStudio it came with a heavy heart. As a writer I feel I have a slight quality of being a creature of habit. Not to say that all writer’s share this, though most I’ve met have in someway exhibited this characteristic in some form or another. It was the choice of overextending myself and doing everything I loved poorly, or doing things I loved well and having to sacrifice one of the things I have come to adore the most about my life. My involvement at StoryStudio Chicago has been a huge part of “keep Marissa sane and connected” regime.
As a Poet/Educator I have learned that what I need more than anything is energy. If I am not exuding an enthusiastic warmth, then a discussion about why line breaks exist in the poem is nothing a child could possibly be interested in learning about. I have spent the last two years at StoryStudio learning as much as I could from all the teachers, the students and staff I have met and have discovered that what it takes to be successful in writing, is the courage to recognize one’s strengths and one’s weakness and moving forward. I am hopeful that my ten weeks with Words@Play will further enhance my abilities as a teacher and an artist and most importantly remind me as to why poetry is one of the largest loves of my life.
I am only slightly encouraged about the fact that once I get started, once the fall is in full swing and winter hits the city, ten weeks will melt away into a rush of white. The amazing core group that is StoryStudio Chicago staff has enabled me to take this opportunity and I am so grateful to them for working as a team to pull off covering ten weeks worth of my shifts. I really found the supportive network of writers I feel every writer dreams about. Writing isn’t just something I do, it’s something I want to live and breath, just like so many I know, have known and will know. Being a Poet/Educator is something that during my MFA days never came into my realm of thinking because I thought it was unattainable. Now, I know that living off doing what you are most passionate about is a possibility.
Just look around you when you’re here in the studio, everyone here is doing something they are passionate about, taking that next step, opening that new door. It’s beautiful! I am proud to be a part of this space and am jealous of everyone that gets to take a class this fall! See you this winter!
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