Friday, August 26, 2005
Rules of workshop
Immutable No-Win Laws of the Poetry Workshop
- If you use synaesthesia in a poem, someone in your workshop will say something along the lines of "I like synaesthesia, but it's not working here." They are quite likely wrong on both counts.
- Someone will always want your obscure reference explained in a note or the poem body, unless you actually do it.
- If you are in the same workshop for a year, you will hear at least two of "Show, don't tell," "A poem should not mean, but be," "Real toads in imaginary gardens," and "No ideas but in things." Both uses will be applied badly in a patronizing voice.
- If you are in the read-and-respond-in-the-same-session sort of workshop, no one will ever address the overall theme or point of any poem whose meaning isn't immediately accessible, for fear of looking ignorant (and because it can't be done effectively in five minutes).
- At least one writer in your workshop won't even take notes on what other people say about his/her poem, just to let you know the high regard he/she holds everyone in.
- Live workshops consist of 99% people who are too nice to each other's poems. Online workshops consist of 50% those people and 49% mean trolls.
- Someone will insist on bringing multiple poems to one session because "they're all short."
- And last but most: everyone else will try to turn your poems into their poems. (Thanks for the comment reminding me of that one, C. Dale)
Comments:
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*snerk*
These would be some of the reasons why one workshop every five years is about my limit.
(Hi. Here via a link from Mary Agner's.)
These would be some of the reasons why one workshop every five years is about my limit.
(Hi. Here via a link from Mary Agner's.)
"Online workshops consist of 50% those people and 49% mean trolls. ": This made me laugh, because sometimes it sure feels that way doesn't it?
You forgot to mention the one person who feels he/she the moment is nigh whem he/she will lead a coup against the original organizer of the workshop and is looking for your support.
I'm taking a semester-long poetry workshop for the first time in nearly two decades. Thanks for reminding me of all these rules. Another one I remember is "Leave your ego out in the hallway," which a friend of mine misheard as "Leave your Yugo out in the hallway." (There's a poem in there somewhere).
Thanks for this.
Thanks for this.
Don't forget that gem of a workshopper who always responds to critique with, "But that's how it happened! I can't possibly change anything..."
*sigh*
*sigh*
I just returned from my very first workshop in-person at the Esalen Institute, facilitated by Dorianne Laux, Ellen Bass, and Joe Millar. I was the 1%. As far as I'm concerned, too many writers are getting too lazy and complacent about craft and yet still call themselves "poet". This whole join-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya self-esteem movement of the past few decades is a big part of the problem. Since I can't seem to beat 'em, I shall join 'em with a cordless drill, trepan their skull, and call myself "brain surgeon". I'll make a killing in medical fees, man, and no college loans to pay off either.
yes, I've met some of these characters and more, and experienced these incidents, and more....but I still go to workshops. I find that they inevitably (sp?) generate new ideas or open up new approaches, even if they take months to gestate.
I wonder if one reason is that here in England we don't have such an established culture of writing programmes and such an established network of unestablished writing programme graduates. On a lot of the US sites/online workshops there seems to be a kind of critiquing formula. It's almost as if the unestablished writing programme graduates are trying to show that they have, finally, learnt the rules.
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I wonder if one reason is that here in England we don't have such an established culture of writing programmes and such an established network of unestablished writing programme graduates. On a lot of the US sites/online workshops there seems to be a kind of critiquing formula. It's almost as if the unestablished writing programme graduates are trying to show that they have, finally, learnt the rules.
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