Building off some of the same ideas I worked into my recent essays on using museums for inspiration, I did a free webinar for museum professionals yesterday encouraging them to look at their workplaces as spurs to their own creative habits. It was great to see so many folks willing to share their proto-poems through the chat feature; online writing prompts could have been chancy, but I was super proud of all the participants!
You can watch the recording here or through the New England Museum Association website, as linked below.
If you missed my webinar yesterday on creative writing for museum professionals, you can catch up now with the recording and download a pdf of the slides, available for free on the NEMA website. You can also watch it directly below, or just have a look at the slideshow without my narration.
The second workshop I led for MassPoetry Festival 2017 was “Solarpunk Serenades,” which was an introduction to the world of eco-conscious, optimistic, near-future science fiction that is now termed solarpunk. Arguably, there are moments in poetry, publishing, and popular culture which have fit this bill in the last hundred years at least, but now it has a name, and an opportunity to make its mark in sci-fi literature, aesthetics, design, and imagination the same way cyberpunk or steampunk have.
The slides below contain links to and names of most of the resources I mentioned in my presentation, for both the context and history of solarpunk, and places to find inspiration to write your own. There are also three themed writing prompts with visual cues. You can find most of those visuals and links to their originals on my Pinterest board. It was fabulous to see such a packed room of optimistic geeky poets, and I was really impressed with the breadth of imagination and vivid imagery that people who chose to share their poem drafts demonstrated. Thanks for inspiring me in return, poetpunks!
You can also download the handout from this workshop, with examples of poems both new and classic that use some solarpunk ideas and ideals here: SolarpunkSerenades workshop handout.
In my sixth year of attending the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, I once again listened to amazing poets that were new to me, reconnected with friends and colleagues, and came away with several pages of thoughts on poems I want to write (even a few scribbled draftlets!).
I also led two workshops on Sunday morning of the festival, the first of which was “On Beyond Giggles: Writing Children’s Poetry.”
Several of the folks in the room currently write poetry for children, others were interested in getting into writing for a younger audience, and all of us spent a little time thinking about who we were as children to get in the right mindset for the rest of the workshop.
Who were you when you were five years old? What did five year old you like to play? Who were your friends? Did you have a favorite toy or hideout or joke? Did you have siblings to play with, fight with, or play jokes on?
Who were you when you were seven? Did you have the same friends or new ones? The same fights? The same favorite color?
Who were you when you were ten? Were you out exploring your neighborhood? Getting into reading or sports or board games? Who were your friends? What were you afraid of? What made you laugh?
After calling our kid-selves back to the surface, we looked at some examples of great and effective children’s poetry, and talked about the poems we remembered from childhood ourselves, or from our kids’ favorites. Then we wrote, inspired by several prompts from one of my favorite kids’ poets, Jack Prelutsky. People came up with some fantastic verse, rhyming and free verse, inventive and imaginative, silly and sweet (and bittersweet too).
The slides from the workshop are here below. Thanks to all the hardy folks who attended on an early Sunday morning to talk and write playful poetry with me!
It’s spring, and I celebrated “Aprille with his shoures soote” by heading to England for a dose of literary pilgrimage, much in the spirit of my third and latest essay for all the sins, “And I must follow, if I can.” (Issue 3 is up in its entirety, and it’s great, go check it out!)
We hit London, Bath, Lyme Regis, Portsmouth, and Brighton in 6 days (whew!). Literary moments included seeing the musical of Matilda (Roald Dahl), a walking tour of literary London in Bloomsbury (Virginia Woolf and her cohort, Dorothy Sayers, Randolph Caldecott, TS Eliot, and more), saying hi to Shakespeare and Austen in the National Portrait Gallery, more Shakespeare, not to mention Beatles lyrics and more in the British Library, and that was just in the first two days. We also visited the Jane Austen Centre, the Assembly Rooms, and the Circus and Crescent in Bath, strolled the Cobb in Lyme Regis, and said “A little seabathing would set me up forever!” at least twice in Brighton. And I had a lot of Horatio Hornblower (CS Forester) feels at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. We also drank a lot of tea, and ate a lot of scones and Welsh rarebit. It was a stupendous trip.
Here are a handful of snapshots of some of the gorgeous, inspiring, hilarious, and memorable moments from my whirlwind Jane-Austen-inspired vacation:
…And signups are now available for my two workshops, among many other fantastic looking offerings, here. As always, there’s a great diversity of poets, styles, forms, and ideas represented in the schedule, and I’m really looking forward to attending this year, as well as leading the two workshops on Sunday morning.
Solarpunk, the optimistic, eco-conscious, sci-fi of the near future, is a great fit for the imagination and whimsy of a poet. We’ll look at some examples of poems old and new that reflect the solarpunk ideals, and experiment with writing prompts. Bring your futurist dreams of conversing with whales, living in a treehouse, and using solar sails to reach Mars to this workshop.
What makes a poem for children successful? Does it have to rhyme? Use short words? Feature at least one thing to gross you out? We’ll look at examples from a number of poets who write for younger audiences, and try out some of their techniques with a selection of writing prompts. Feel free to bring an example of one of your favorite poems for kids to add to the discussion!
Page from Red Sings from Treetops, written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski
Apparently, “Bualadh Bos” is a phrase in Irish that means applause, and there was plenty of cause for cheers at the recent Irish Literary Festival, held for the first time at the Harvard Club in downtown Boston and arranged by a whole bunch of clever cultural ambassadors from the Irish Writers’ Centre, Poetry Ireland, and the Consul General of Ireland to Boston, Fionnuala Quinlan (@IrelandBoston). (My companion and I had a lovely conversation with Ms. Quinlan during the reception on Friday, and she’s delightful. I hope she has reason to remain posted in Boston and help arrange many such events in the future.)
Kevin Barry, Lisa McInerney, and Fionnuala Quinlan in conversation during Friday’s opening event.
Barry read a section of one of his short stories, and McInerney from her recent award-winning novel, The Glorious Heresies. Both authors were excellent readers of their own work; funny, dramatic, and engaged with both the text and the audience, which meant that my companion and I both left the evening more interested in reading more of their work, rather than less, which can be the case with less skillful presenters.
From right, Tara Bergin, Nick Laird, and Stephen Sexton in conversation with Maureen Kennelly of Poetry Ireland.
The next day we got to hear readings of some fantastic poetry from Tara Bergin, Nick Laird, and Stephen Sexton. Bergin’s poetry is lyrical, with an element of folklore-sound to it without ever directly referencing specific legends. You can read a review of her debut book, This is Yarrow, here. Laird’s poetry was sharp and wound round itself like an ammonite, and frequently referenced current events and recent scientific thought. You can read his article “Why Poetry is the perfect weapon to fight Donald Trump” here. Sexton’s poetry was often, though not solely, humorous; he noted as he began that when picking his poems for the event he discovered “[he had] a lot of hobbies for about three weeks,” which was long enough to work them into a poem or two before going on to something new. You can read one of the poems he read that day here: “The Curfew.”
Though my companion and I bought several books at the event, which I am reading with great pleasure, I also went and found more of their poetry after the event. My current favorite is Bergin’s “Appointment with Jane Austen,” especially appropriate as I shall shortly be undertaking a literary pilgrimage to Austen’s country myself.
Paul Howard and Kevin Cullen
The last event of the weekend was Boston Globe columnist and journalist Kevin Cullen interviewing journalist and novelist Paul Howard. They spoke of everything from sports journalism and doping scandals to the success of Howard’s satirical main character, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, in whose Homer-Simpson-esque adventures and foibles Howard keeps a running commentary on current events in Dublin and to a lesser extent, the wider world.
Overall it was a fascinating weekend, and I was only sorry that it seemed the event had not been widely enough publicized, as the room was moderately full but deserved to be more so on each of the two days. As it seemed many in the audience, like myself, were being introduced to most of these writers for the first time, the event definitely succeeded in its stated purpose to use Ireland’s literary offerings as a bridge to new audiences and new opportunities, and Boston was a perfect place to hold such a gathering. I will be keeping my eyes out for announcements of next year’s Irish Literary Festival, for sure.
Detail from a map in the collection of the Boston Public Library’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.
A few weeks ago, all the sins published my reflections on and exhortations to the wonders of gathering artistic inspiration in museums. (If you missed it, you can find it here.)
This week, they’re back with my best suggestions on how to outfit yourself for a museum exploration. Matthew Henson didn’t head for the North Pole without a coat, after all!
So if you’re suffering writer’s block, or it’s been ages since you went on that school trip to your local historical society, here are my 5 tips on using museums for inspiration.
…Inspiration can come from a fossil in a natural history collection, a scrap of wallpaper in a historic house, the view from a national park peak. What would a taxidermied specimen have to say to its collector? What words still resonate in the walls of an old structure? Whose hands molded the pot whose shards sit in that case, and how do the pieces evoke the whole?
My features essay, “Art Heists for Art’s Sake,” is now up to kick off Issue 3 of the lovely UK literary journal, all the sins!
…the day I stood in front of that Breugel painting and talked poetry with my mother was a turning point for me. Since then, I’ve worked inspiration from other art forms into my creative writing, both poetry and prose, both consciously and unconsciously. Museums have also become my career, both as a museum educator and as a museum advocate. Fortunately, one creative practice informs the other in a rewarding cycle.
One of the highlights of my writing-year is always the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. I started off as an attendee, then as a museum educator offering drop-in programs that tied the visual to the verbal arts for all ages, and then as an independent poet submitting workshop proposals on ekphrastic poetry.
For this year’s festival, I’m honored and excited to say that I’ve had two workshop proposals accepted! The schedule for the festival isn’t up yet, but sometime during the weekend of May 5-7, I will be offering the following two workshops:
Solarpunk, the optimistic, eco-conscious, sci-fi of the near future, is a great fit for the imagination and whimsy of a poet. We’ll look at some examples of poems old and new that reflect the solarpunk ideals, and experiment with writing prompts. Bring your futurist dreams of conversing with whales, living in a treehouse, and using solar sails to reach Mars to this workshop.
On Beyond Giggles: Writing Children’s Poetry
What makes a poem for children successful? Does it have to rhyme? Use short words? Feature at least one thing to gross you out? We’ll look at examples from a number of poets who write for younger audiences, and try out some of their techniques with a selection of writing prompts. Feel free to bring an example of one of your favorite poems for kids to add to the discussion!
2016 was internationally devastating, nationally confusing, and personally full of upheaval, though of the positive kind. I moved, got engaged & started planning a wedding, joined a board for an organization I deeply admire, traveled in fun places and caught up with old friends. I continue to work with people I respect for a field I believe in, and I still have the best family pretty much ever. I read 60 something books, including some re-reads of old favorites, led some fun workshops on museums, pop-culture, poetry, and art, and I made some cool stuff. I did not write as much as would be terrific, but 2017 is a shiny new penny, and I already have words on pages and deadlines lining up.
More on that later.
For now, here are three good and/or insightful things from this week to watch/read, if you haven’t yet.
Sea Dreams and Time Machines 