The conclusion of Judy Leaver's wrap-up of her experience at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar....
A Key West Literary Seminar Retrospective: Part III
“Maneuvering the Poem,” continued
By Judy Leaver
“Maneuvering” followed a traditional workshop format. Each of us was instructed ahead of time to bring three poems to be critiqued over the three days. In addition, Collins gave us exercises that focused on the spare, yet astonishing form used by William Carlos Williams, a writer and pediatrician who wrote and practiced in New Jersey in the early 1900s. Our homework was to ‘copy’ the exact form—same title, exact line length, same punctuation or lack of, and number of syllables/per line--of this Williams poem:
This Is Just To Say*
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Mine looked like this:
This Is Just To Say
I drank the last
bourbon
slushee in
the freezer
though I
knew you were counting
on it
tonight, but
I needed
it more than you did
so crisp
so calming
This exercise is great fun and helps you laser in on every syllable, every line. It is a helpful way for a writer to focus on the form of a poem, and not just its content. Try it yourself with this Williams poem:
Poem*
As the cat
climbed over
the top of
the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot
carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot
I can clearly see one of my cats doing this! And that was Williams’ point. He wanted his poetry to "escape from crude symbolism, the annihilation of strained associations, complicated ritualistic forms designed to separate work from reality". Hear! Hear! Collins’ poetry is similar in that respect. He stresses the value of using quiet language, the language of things, invoking Emerson who said that the language of things is sufficient.
Collins suggested a number of books that are excellent primers for poets, regarding the issue of form especially. My two favorites are Rules of the Dance by Mary Oliver and Best Words/Best Order by Steven Dobyns.
*Both poems can be found in The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. 1 1909-1939.
About: Judy Leaver, M.A. has worked as a professional writer for nearly 9 years, following a 20-year career in social work and mental health advocacy. Her creative writing includes poetry, essays, short stories, and untold vignettes that appear to be pointing the way to a memoir. She has participated in a writing group that is fourteen years strong, and in the spring of 2004 was selected to participate in the Jenny McKean Moore Community Workshop at George Washington University, under the tutelage of poet, Rick Barot. In January of this year she participated in “Maneuvering the Poem”, a workshop with former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins in Key West, FL. Her work has been published in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. She guest-blogged here in April of 2008.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
WC&C Scholarship Competition
Writers’ Conferences & Centers is conducting its annual competition to provide scholarships for writers who wish to attend a writers’ conference, center, retreat, or residency. The scholarships will be applied to fees to attend any of the over 90 members of WC&C, an association of outstanding conferences, centers, retreats, and festivals for writers.
The deadline for the WC&C Competition is March 30, 2009. Two scholarships of $500 will be awarded. To enter the competition, please follow the guidelines listed on our website: http://www.writersconf.org/scholarship/index.php
The deadline for the WC&C Competition is March 30, 2009. Two scholarships of $500 will be awarded. To enter the competition, please follow the guidelines listed on our website: http://www.writersconf.org/scholarship/index.php
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Guest in Progress: Judy Leaver, Part II
A Key West Literary Seminar Retrospective: Part II
"Maneuvering the Poem"
By Judy Leaver
“The truth is, nobody cares about your poetry or the narcissism that may drive it.” With that, Billy Collins launched his “Maneuvering the Poem” workshop for 14 good-to-astounding poets in Key West January 12-15, 2009. His remark actually made us all relax. He also indicated that each of us has at least 500 bad poems in us. (See Judy count her poems quickly.) These opening remarks were said with such good humor, we took him seriously.
Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate (2001 and 2002), has made poetry ‘cool’ by keeping his reader front and center as he composes ironic, yet poignant verse that appeals to a broad cross section of the public. He has written several books of poetry—many on bestseller lists! The most recent is Ballistics, released in 2008. Poets & Writers magazine published a cover story, “Billy Collins: Poetry for the People”, in its September/October 2008 edition. (see http://www.pw.org/).
The evening before the workshop began, Collins gave a reading before a standing room only crowd of 200+. This rock start status just doesn’t happen to poets! Nevertheless, he read for at least an hour in a way that was self-deprecating, charming and funny. The depth of his poetry might best be described by the differing response to his poem, “The Lanyard.” When I read this poem on my own at home, I cried. He read it to this audience and everyone howled with laughter. What’s your reaction?
The Lanyard
(from The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems, Random House, 2005)
The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the archaic truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Back to the workshop. Imaginative freedom is what Collins looks for in poems. His mantra is that poetry offers us the highest degree of freedom of any writing form. You don’t have to worry about logic or chronology. You have freedom to change directions. There’s no such thing as distraction/diversion in a poem. In fact, an imaginative poet may want to follow that distraction—that side road—and see where it leads. A poem will be seeking its own limits. “Poetry is harder than writing.” Nevertheless, it needs to be accessible to the reader.
Despite this deceptively laissez faire way of thinking about and teaching poetry, Collins is hard-core about the importance of form in a poem. “Poetry is about giving pleasure to the reader through form.” He is consistently focused on the relationship between a writer and a reader. Like any relationship, it must be imbedded in trust. And trust is related to tonal authority. Do I trust this voice? (Yes, poems have a voice, like other literary genres.) If a poem is too obscure or hard to understand, it will alienate the reader and lead to distrust, which is only a step away from losing interest and moving on…quickly. Consider the fact that (back in my day) most high school English classes imposed Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales on the students. Might that be directly related to the general lack of excitement about poetry for most adults today? Collins (who is Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York) says he starts with contemporary poetry and works his way backward to Chaucer.
When Collins talked about the importance of form and its evolution, he made the point that Walt Whitman removed the poetry training wheels of meter and rhyme, so the bike/poem could go on its own. But there is danger in losing the system of trust that needs to exist between poet and reader. When we hear, “Whose woods these are I think I know…” we can relax into this poem because the form is there and it is familiar.
Haiku, in Collins’ opinion, is a good example of the tension between self-expression and form. You must negotiate with the haiku--it is indifferent to you but wants you to follow the rules—three lines in 17 syllables. True haiku does not use simile, comparison or metaphor. Eastern poetry is direct. You won’t see the use of ‘like’ in a haiku.
Barring insufferable arrogance, it can be assumed that a poet doesn’t intend to alienate a reader. Collins, in his gently humorous way, indicated that so much may have already taken place in the poet’s head before the words reach the page, the reader is left clueless. He advises backing up the poem so the reader travels with you, and understands how you got ‘there.’ He used a poker game as a metaphor. The poet has to turn over enough cards to provide clues, but not so many that he gives away the farm. Start with a lanyard and move to feelings about your mother.
About: Judy Leaver, M.A. has worked as a professional writer for nearly 9 years, following a 20-year career in social work and mental health advocacy. Her creative writing includes poetry, essays, short stories, and untold vignettes that appear to be pointing the way to a memoir. She has participated in a writing group that is fourteen years strong, and in the spring of 2004 was selected to participate in the Jenny McKean Moore Community Workshop at George Washington University, under the tutelage of poet, Rick Barot. In January of this year she participated in “Maneuvering the Poem”, a workshop with former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins in Key West, FL. Her work has been published in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. She guest-blogged here in April of 2008.
"Maneuvering the Poem"
By Judy Leaver
“The truth is, nobody cares about your poetry or the narcissism that may drive it.” With that, Billy Collins launched his “Maneuvering the Poem” workshop for 14 good-to-astounding poets in Key West January 12-15, 2009. His remark actually made us all relax. He also indicated that each of us has at least 500 bad poems in us. (See Judy count her poems quickly.) These opening remarks were said with such good humor, we took him seriously.
Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate (2001 and 2002), has made poetry ‘cool’ by keeping his reader front and center as he composes ironic, yet poignant verse that appeals to a broad cross section of the public. He has written several books of poetry—many on bestseller lists! The most recent is Ballistics, released in 2008. Poets & Writers magazine published a cover story, “Billy Collins: Poetry for the People”, in its September/October 2008 edition. (see http://www.pw.org/).
The evening before the workshop began, Collins gave a reading before a standing room only crowd of 200+. This rock start status just doesn’t happen to poets! Nevertheless, he read for at least an hour in a way that was self-deprecating, charming and funny. The depth of his poetry might best be described by the differing response to his poem, “The Lanyard.” When I read this poem on my own at home, I cried. He read it to this audience and everyone howled with laughter. What’s your reaction?
The Lanyard
(from The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems, Random House, 2005)
The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the archaic truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Back to the workshop. Imaginative freedom is what Collins looks for in poems. His mantra is that poetry offers us the highest degree of freedom of any writing form. You don’t have to worry about logic or chronology. You have freedom to change directions. There’s no such thing as distraction/diversion in a poem. In fact, an imaginative poet may want to follow that distraction—that side road—and see where it leads. A poem will be seeking its own limits. “Poetry is harder than writing.” Nevertheless, it needs to be accessible to the reader.
Despite this deceptively laissez faire way of thinking about and teaching poetry, Collins is hard-core about the importance of form in a poem. “Poetry is about giving pleasure to the reader through form.” He is consistently focused on the relationship between a writer and a reader. Like any relationship, it must be imbedded in trust. And trust is related to tonal authority. Do I trust this voice? (Yes, poems have a voice, like other literary genres.) If a poem is too obscure or hard to understand, it will alienate the reader and lead to distrust, which is only a step away from losing interest and moving on…quickly. Consider the fact that (back in my day) most high school English classes imposed Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales on the students. Might that be directly related to the general lack of excitement about poetry for most adults today? Collins (who is Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York) says he starts with contemporary poetry and works his way backward to Chaucer.
When Collins talked about the importance of form and its evolution, he made the point that Walt Whitman removed the poetry training wheels of meter and rhyme, so the bike/poem could go on its own. But there is danger in losing the system of trust that needs to exist between poet and reader. When we hear, “Whose woods these are I think I know…” we can relax into this poem because the form is there and it is familiar.
Haiku, in Collins’ opinion, is a good example of the tension between self-expression and form. You must negotiate with the haiku--it is indifferent to you but wants you to follow the rules—three lines in 17 syllables. True haiku does not use simile, comparison or metaphor. Eastern poetry is direct. You won’t see the use of ‘like’ in a haiku.
Barring insufferable arrogance, it can be assumed that a poet doesn’t intend to alienate a reader. Collins, in his gently humorous way, indicated that so much may have already taken place in the poet’s head before the words reach the page, the reader is left clueless. He advises backing up the poem so the reader travels with you, and understands how you got ‘there.’ He used a poker game as a metaphor. The poet has to turn over enough cards to provide clues, but not so many that he gives away the farm. Start with a lanyard and move to feelings about your mother.
About: Judy Leaver, M.A. has worked as a professional writer for nearly 9 years, following a 20-year career in social work and mental health advocacy. Her creative writing includes poetry, essays, short stories, and untold vignettes that appear to be pointing the way to a memoir. She has participated in a writing group that is fourteen years strong, and in the spring of 2004 was selected to participate in the Jenny McKean Moore Community Workshop at George Washington University, under the tutelage of poet, Rick Barot. In January of this year she participated in “Maneuvering the Poem”, a workshop with former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins in Key West, FL. Her work has been published in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. She guest-blogged here in April of 2008.
ISO Food Poems
What could be better than combining food and poetry as this call for submissions does?
Call for menupoems!
April is National Poetry Month, and Alimentum will once again publish a poetry broadside of menupoems for National Poetry Month.
The poems are distributed to participating restaurants for diners to enjoy some poetry with their menu!
We need your poems! Only about a dozen poems will be selected.
Here are the guidelines:
Short menu-dining-food- related poems.
12-line length limit.
3-poem submission limit.
Deadline--March 4th, 2009.
Email submission to menupoems@alimentumjournal.com
IMPORTANT- poems must be pasted into the body of the email, no attachments.
To see some menupoem examples check the archive on our Alimentum Online website page: http://www.alimentumjournal.com/alimentumonline.html
ATTENTION Restaurants (or do you have a favorite restaurant?):
Participate by giving your diners menupoems during National Poetry Month.
We'll ship you a stack, and post your name and address on our website throughout April. Participation is free! Write to let us know if you'd like to take part in the menupoem party! Email: menupoems@alimentumjournal.com
Call for menupoems!
April is National Poetry Month, and Alimentum will once again publish a poetry broadside of menupoems for National Poetry Month.
The poems are distributed to participating restaurants for diners to enjoy some poetry with their menu!
We need your poems! Only about a dozen poems will be selected.
Here are the guidelines:
Short menu-dining-food- related poems.
12-line length limit.
3-poem submission limit.
Deadline--March 4th, 2009.
Email submission to menupoems@alimentumjournal.com
IMPORTANT- poems must be pasted into the body of the email, no attachments.
To see some menupoem examples check the archive on our Alimentum Online website page: http://www.alimentumjournal.com/alimentumonline.html
ATTENTION Restaurants (or do you have a favorite restaurant?):
Participate by giving your diners menupoems during National Poetry Month.
We'll ship you a stack, and post your name and address on our website throughout April. Participation is free! Write to let us know if you'd like to take part in the menupoem party! Email: menupoems@alimentumjournal.com
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Martin Moran to Appear at the Writer's Center
Martin Moran, acclaimed Broadway actor and author of The Tricky Part: One Boy’s Fall from Trespass into Grace, a story of sexual abuse and its aftermath, will bring his award-winning one-man show based on the book to The Writer’s Center. It’ll be a unique event that merges a reading and a performance. He has recently been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award (outstanding lead actor, non-resident production) for his performance of the show at Signature Theatre. Visit the book’s Web site for additional details: http://www.thetrickypartbook.com/index_content.html
When: Monday, March 2, 2009 at 7:30 P.M.
Where: The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD 20815. 301.654.8664.
General admission: $10 ($15 for nonmembers)
More info: www.writer.org
When: Monday, March 2, 2009 at 7:30 P.M.
Where: The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD 20815. 301.654.8664.
General admission: $10 ($15 for nonmembers)
More info: www.writer.org
Guest in Progress: Judy Leaver, Part 1
Thanks to Judy Leaver for this wonderful report about the Key West Literary Seminar!
A Key West Literary Seminar Retrospective: Part I
By Judy Leaver
This is a flat-out plug for the Key West Literary Seminar (KWLS), having just wrapped up its 27th bonanza this past January. KWLS is a pricey--$495 for registration alone--but stunning way to get to Key West in the winter, and (if you’re a writer) legitimately write some of your expenses off. You will be treated to a tropical potpourri of literary braininess, soothing sunshine, joyous sunsets, the ghost of Hemingway and progeny of his six-toed cats, noisy roosters claiming the right of way, hedonism hunters, social dropouts and aging hippies. An island where a gas station is the place to buy absolutely the best fried chicken you’ve ever tasted. The southernmost tip of the United States where people eat key lime pie on a stick. Or have shrimp and grits for breakfast at the Blue Heaven Restaurant sitting outside under the trees while roosters and cats stroll around underfoot.
Key West is home either full or part time for a number of writers, making the annual literary seminar an easy ‘draw’ for the literati, and a captive audience who will buy their books. This year’s theme was “Historical Fiction and the Search for Truth.” Novelist Allan Gurganus’ conviction that “We need history so much, we historians and novelists, we keep making it up. And history returns the favor," suggests the zany but serious nature of the theme’s exploration. (Gurganus is the author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.)
Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of March and People of the Book, opened the 2009 literary blockbuster by saying, "You don't have to be a necrophiliac to write historical novels, but it helps." Brooks noted that she loves graveyards and was encouraged to move to Martha’s Vineyard with her husband, fellow writer Tony Horwitz, by one gravestone with the inscription "At Last, A Fulltime Resident."
The annual three-and-a-half day seminar is targeted to an audience of readers who, in the two years I’ve attended, are mostly white and retired, with money and time to attend. I am not retired, so it’s a financial stretch for me, but I rationalize it as an investment in my writing and reading. Be warned—the seminar is so intellectually stimulating, your head may explode.
The main seminar action takes place at the stately San Carlos Institute on Duval Street, just three doors down from Jimmy Buffet’s Original Margaritaville Café. The San Carlos is one of Florida's most beautiful and historic landmarks. It was founded in 1871 by the Cuban exiles of Key West as an educational, civic, and patriotic center. Today it serves as a museum, library, art gallery, theater, and school. Located in the heart of Key West's historic district, the San Carlos is considered the cradle of Cuba's independence movement. It was at the San Carlos that Jose Marti united the exile community in 1892 to launch the final phase of his campaign for Cuba's independence. So, Key West and Cuba are intertwined, not just at the San Carlos, but in the architecture, art, and language of the island.
Inside the San Carlos, besides Geraldine Brooks and Allan Gurganus, we were treated to Ursula Hegi, Sena Jeter Naslund, Peter Matthiessen, Barry Unsworth, Gore Vidal and a slew of others, most of them reading from their well-known novels and/or newest work. Beyond the readings, they participated on panels or gave lectures regarding their individual perspectives on the degree of allegiance a novelist owes to historical ‘fact.’
Barry Unsworth was worth getting out of bed on Sunday morning with his talk explaining why and how he writes historical fiction, and why we read it. "We haven't got any choice in the matter," the courtly Mr. Unsworth said. “The past is being forged moment to moment as we live." Each of us is the result of choices made in the past by our parents, grandparents, and beyond– in Unsworth's case, his father's decision to leave the mining work where sons followed fathers, go to the U.S. and Canada, and, upon returning to England, work in the insurance business. With those decisions, "he rescued my brother and me from that long chain of continuity, which is what happened in mining villages."
Despite my bias for fiction, I want to be fair to the history side of this seminar. There was lively consideration of the degree of accuracy an historical novelist owes a reader. Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore (both are ridiculously accomplished historians and writers) come down on the side of extreme accuracy. Lepore, besides teaching history, is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and in March of 2008 wrote an article on this subject entitled “Just the Facts, Ma’am.” Jane and Jill together have just released a novel, Blindspot, set in Boston on the eve of the American Revolution, an era both women know well as historians.
Okay…it wouldn’t be good to place the Boston Tea Party in Long Island Sound, but the depth of research demanded of historical ‘Truth’! And whose ‘Truth’ are we talking about anyway? Or, as Gurganus opined, "History is agreed-upon hearsay granted tenure."
Fortunately, Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, and one of the country’s most prominent historians, eased my historical accuracy anxiety when he spoke about, “Who Owns History? Rethinking and Re-imagining the Past in a Changing World.” When he said, "The line between historical fiction and historical scholarship is not as hard and fast as we might think," I realized that “revisionist history” isn’t pejorative! History is constantly being revised as new evidence emerges, as new historians form and then filter their own ideas about past events. "History is not and should not aspire to be a science."
"Trouble is our subject matter and it is never-ending," Gurganus observed in his talk entitled, “A Still Small Voice Under the Cannonade: Field Notes toward Fiction’s Pact with History.” Gurganus was part literary academic and part stand up comedian: "Liars, like historians and politicians, tend to overdocument.... the term historical fiction sounds as pitifully redundant as, say, creative writing. It's like having 'oxygen breather' stamped on your driver's license."
Dishing Department. I have to say, I was looking forward to seeing Alan Cheuse since I’ve heard him reviewing books on NPR for years. Sadly, his light did not shine so brightly against Geraldine Brooks and Sena Jeter Naslund. While serving as their panel moderator, not once, but TWICE he made suggestive remarks (See Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife and Moby Dick) that rankled these two brilliant women, not to mention an audience of over 200 who were mostly women. What was he thinking!! I suspect his book sales suffered.
The rather steep registration fee for the seminar also covers several sumptuous food and drink events in lovely places like the grounds of the Key West Lighthouse. I cannot do such a luscious literary event justice here. Go to www.kwls.org and read more about each of the luminaries and past seminars.
The Key West Literary Seminar is followed by four days of workshops for writers, with topics ranging from poetry to fiction, to memoir, to creative nonfiction. The workshop component costs $450. There’s a small price break if you sign up for both the seminar and the workshop parts. Transportation and lodging are up to you. All the events take place in Old Town, so it’s most convenient to stay in that area. Key West is small and compact—quite walkable. Bicycle rentals are ubiquitous and the town is bike-friendly.
Next year’s seminar. “Clearing the Sill of the World” is the theme of the 2010 seminar. It is a celebration of 60 years of American poetry in honor of Richard Wilbur, former Poet Laureate and winner of every available poetry honor or prize currently available. Registration is open now. The seminar fills up fast and attendees at this year’s event got a jump on everyone else by being able to put down a deposit before we left Key West. Again, go to www.kwls.org for more information.
About: Judy Leaver, M.A. has worked as a professional writer for nearly 9 years, following a 20-year career in social work and mental health advocacy. Her creative writing includes poetry, essays, short stories, and untold vignettes that appear to be pointing the way to a memoir. She has participated in a writing group that is fourteen years strong, and in the spring of 2004 was selected to participate in the Jenny McKean Moore Community Workshop at George Washington University, under the tutelage of poet Rick Barot. In January of this year she participated in “Maneuvering the Poem”, a workshop with former Poet Laureate,Billy Collins in Key West, FL. Her work has been published in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. She guest-blogged here in April of 2008.
A Key West Literary Seminar Retrospective: Part I
By Judy Leaver
This is a flat-out plug for the Key West Literary Seminar (KWLS), having just wrapped up its 27th bonanza this past January. KWLS is a pricey--$495 for registration alone--but stunning way to get to Key West in the winter, and (if you’re a writer) legitimately write some of your expenses off. You will be treated to a tropical potpourri of literary braininess, soothing sunshine, joyous sunsets, the ghost of Hemingway and progeny of his six-toed cats, noisy roosters claiming the right of way, hedonism hunters, social dropouts and aging hippies. An island where a gas station is the place to buy absolutely the best fried chicken you’ve ever tasted. The southernmost tip of the United States where people eat key lime pie on a stick. Or have shrimp and grits for breakfast at the Blue Heaven Restaurant sitting outside under the trees while roosters and cats stroll around underfoot.
Key West is home either full or part time for a number of writers, making the annual literary seminar an easy ‘draw’ for the literati, and a captive audience who will buy their books. This year’s theme was “Historical Fiction and the Search for Truth.” Novelist Allan Gurganus’ conviction that “We need history so much, we historians and novelists, we keep making it up. And history returns the favor," suggests the zany but serious nature of the theme’s exploration. (Gurganus is the author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.)
Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of March and People of the Book, opened the 2009 literary blockbuster by saying, "You don't have to be a necrophiliac to write historical novels, but it helps." Brooks noted that she loves graveyards and was encouraged to move to Martha’s Vineyard with her husband, fellow writer Tony Horwitz, by one gravestone with the inscription "At Last, A Fulltime Resident."
The annual three-and-a-half day seminar is targeted to an audience of readers who, in the two years I’ve attended, are mostly white and retired, with money and time to attend. I am not retired, so it’s a financial stretch for me, but I rationalize it as an investment in my writing and reading. Be warned—the seminar is so intellectually stimulating, your head may explode.
The main seminar action takes place at the stately San Carlos Institute on Duval Street, just three doors down from Jimmy Buffet’s Original Margaritaville Café. The San Carlos is one of Florida's most beautiful and historic landmarks. It was founded in 1871 by the Cuban exiles of Key West as an educational, civic, and patriotic center. Today it serves as a museum, library, art gallery, theater, and school. Located in the heart of Key West's historic district, the San Carlos is considered the cradle of Cuba's independence movement. It was at the San Carlos that Jose Marti united the exile community in 1892 to launch the final phase of his campaign for Cuba's independence. So, Key West and Cuba are intertwined, not just at the San Carlos, but in the architecture, art, and language of the island.
Inside the San Carlos, besides Geraldine Brooks and Allan Gurganus, we were treated to Ursula Hegi, Sena Jeter Naslund, Peter Matthiessen, Barry Unsworth, Gore Vidal and a slew of others, most of them reading from their well-known novels and/or newest work. Beyond the readings, they participated on panels or gave lectures regarding their individual perspectives on the degree of allegiance a novelist owes to historical ‘fact.’
Barry Unsworth was worth getting out of bed on Sunday morning with his talk explaining why and how he writes historical fiction, and why we read it. "We haven't got any choice in the matter," the courtly Mr. Unsworth said. “The past is being forged moment to moment as we live." Each of us is the result of choices made in the past by our parents, grandparents, and beyond– in Unsworth's case, his father's decision to leave the mining work where sons followed fathers, go to the U.S. and Canada, and, upon returning to England, work in the insurance business. With those decisions, "he rescued my brother and me from that long chain of continuity, which is what happened in mining villages."
Despite my bias for fiction, I want to be fair to the history side of this seminar. There was lively consideration of the degree of accuracy an historical novelist owes a reader. Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore (both are ridiculously accomplished historians and writers) come down on the side of extreme accuracy. Lepore, besides teaching history, is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and in March of 2008 wrote an article on this subject entitled “Just the Facts, Ma’am.” Jane and Jill together have just released a novel, Blindspot, set in Boston on the eve of the American Revolution, an era both women know well as historians.
Okay…it wouldn’t be good to place the Boston Tea Party in Long Island Sound, but the depth of research demanded of historical ‘Truth’! And whose ‘Truth’ are we talking about anyway? Or, as Gurganus opined, "History is agreed-upon hearsay granted tenure."
Fortunately, Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, and one of the country’s most prominent historians, eased my historical accuracy anxiety when he spoke about, “Who Owns History? Rethinking and Re-imagining the Past in a Changing World.” When he said, "The line between historical fiction and historical scholarship is not as hard and fast as we might think," I realized that “revisionist history” isn’t pejorative! History is constantly being revised as new evidence emerges, as new historians form and then filter their own ideas about past events. "History is not and should not aspire to be a science."
"Trouble is our subject matter and it is never-ending," Gurganus observed in his talk entitled, “A Still Small Voice Under the Cannonade: Field Notes toward Fiction’s Pact with History.” Gurganus was part literary academic and part stand up comedian: "Liars, like historians and politicians, tend to overdocument.... the term historical fiction sounds as pitifully redundant as, say, creative writing. It's like having 'oxygen breather' stamped on your driver's license."
Dishing Department. I have to say, I was looking forward to seeing Alan Cheuse since I’ve heard him reviewing books on NPR for years. Sadly, his light did not shine so brightly against Geraldine Brooks and Sena Jeter Naslund. While serving as their panel moderator, not once, but TWICE he made suggestive remarks (See Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife and Moby Dick) that rankled these two brilliant women, not to mention an audience of over 200 who were mostly women. What was he thinking!! I suspect his book sales suffered.
The rather steep registration fee for the seminar also covers several sumptuous food and drink events in lovely places like the grounds of the Key West Lighthouse. I cannot do such a luscious literary event justice here. Go to www.kwls.org and read more about each of the luminaries and past seminars.
The Key West Literary Seminar is followed by four days of workshops for writers, with topics ranging from poetry to fiction, to memoir, to creative nonfiction. The workshop component costs $450. There’s a small price break if you sign up for both the seminar and the workshop parts. Transportation and lodging are up to you. All the events take place in Old Town, so it’s most convenient to stay in that area. Key West is small and compact—quite walkable. Bicycle rentals are ubiquitous and the town is bike-friendly.
Next year’s seminar. “Clearing the Sill of the World” is the theme of the 2010 seminar. It is a celebration of 60 years of American poetry in honor of Richard Wilbur, former Poet Laureate and winner of every available poetry honor or prize currently available. Registration is open now. The seminar fills up fast and attendees at this year’s event got a jump on everyone else by being able to put down a deposit before we left Key West. Again, go to www.kwls.org for more information.
About: Judy Leaver, M.A. has worked as a professional writer for nearly 9 years, following a 20-year career in social work and mental health advocacy. Her creative writing includes poetry, essays, short stories, and untold vignettes that appear to be pointing the way to a memoir. She has participated in a writing group that is fourteen years strong, and in the spring of 2004 was selected to participate in the Jenny McKean Moore Community Workshop at George Washington University, under the tutelage of poet Rick Barot. In January of this year she participated in “Maneuvering the Poem”, a workshop with former Poet Laureate,Billy Collins in Key West, FL. Her work has been published in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. She guest-blogged here in April of 2008.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Off to VCCA!
I’m off to spend three weeks at heaven, aka The Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA), an artists’ colony in southwest Virginia. After a hectic January and February, I’m excited to have some time to breathe and get in some writing on my new novel. I’ve also got an essay and a few short stories calling my name in case the novel proves to be stubborn.
I plan to blog while I’m there, though probably less regularly, but for the first week I’m taking a blog vacation of sorts. Happily, writer Judy Leaver has jumped into the gap with her wonderful report on her experiences at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar. So look for that—as well as some pre-posted announcements—starting tomorrow. (You can read Judy’s wonderful poem about the writing process here.)
If this feels disjointed, it’s because I haven’t quite finished packing and figuring out what to bring, and clothes are being washed as we speak. How many sweaters is too many? What if I need a “nice outfit”? Will I be too hot or too cold? Will I really ever get desperate enough to eat the instant oatmeal packets I bought at Target? It freaked me out to realize at midnight that I had forgotten all about a hair dryer…so what else have I forgotten??!
Ahh....breathe. Happy writing!!
I plan to blog while I’m there, though probably less regularly, but for the first week I’m taking a blog vacation of sorts. Happily, writer Judy Leaver has jumped into the gap with her wonderful report on her experiences at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar. So look for that—as well as some pre-posted announcements—starting tomorrow. (You can read Judy’s wonderful poem about the writing process here.)
If this feels disjointed, it’s because I haven’t quite finished packing and figuring out what to bring, and clothes are being washed as we speak. How many sweaters is too many? What if I need a “nice outfit”? Will I be too hot or too cold? Will I really ever get desperate enough to eat the instant oatmeal packets I bought at Target? It freaked me out to realize at midnight that I had forgotten all about a hair dryer…so what else have I forgotten??!
Ahh....breathe. Happy writing!!
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