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Truth and BeautyA Poetry Workshop
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Marie Howe, Dorianne Laux, and Ellen Bass are poets who know how to tell the truth in ways that show us the beauty of life, even in the midst of heartbreak and loss. If you want to encounter more truth in your poems, if you want to tell that truth in the most beautiful way possible, if you want to craft poems that reflect the inextricable marriage of truth and beauty, love and death, the luminous and the ordinary, please join us for this special workshop.
There is a world inside each of us that we know better than anything else, and a world outside of us that calls for our attention. Our subject matter is always right with us.
We will elude and distract the censors that silence or limit us. We'll approach our experience from new angles to find the poem within the story. We'll question the stories we think are true and experience the power of not-knowing and discovery.
We will write poems, share our writing, and hear what our work touches in others. We'll also read model poems by contemporary poets and discuss aspects of the craft. But mainly this will be a writing retreat—time to explore and create in a supportive community. Though the focus is on poetry, prose writers who want to enrich their language will find it a fertile environment.
There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy...that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist... It is not your business to determine how good it is...It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. —Martha Graham
Please scroll down for new poems by Marie, Dorianne, and Ellen
DORIANNE LAUX's fifth collection of poetry is The Book of Men (Norton, 2011). Her previous books include Facts about the Moon (recipient of the Oregon Book Award and short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize), Awake, What We Carry (finalist for the National Book Critic's Circle Award), and Smoke, as well as two fine small press editions, Superman: The Chapbook and Dark Charms (Red Dragonfly Press). Co-author of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, she's the recipient of two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Widely anthologized, her work has appeared in the Best of APR, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and The Best of the Net. Her poems have been translated into six languages and her selected works, In a Room with a Rag in my Hand, has been published in Arabic (Camel/Kalima Press).She teaches in the MFA program at North Carolina State University and at Pacific University's Low Residency MFA Program. In the words of Gerald Stern: "These poems represent a knowledge and a sensibility that is unmistakeable and a lyric loveliness that springs from that knowledge. I loved reading them and I praise them to the sky."
MARIE HOWE is the author of three books of poetry, the most recent being, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (Norton, 2008). Her previous books include The Good Thief (which was chosen for the 1987 National Poetry Series) and What the Living Do (1998). She has also co-edited In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Agni, Harvard Review and New England Review, among many others. Marie Howe received a Guggenheim and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence and NYU. In the words of Stanley Kunitz: "Marie Howe's poetry is luminous, intense, and eloquent, rooted in an abundant inner life. Her long, deep-breathing lines address the mysteries of flesh and spirit, in terms accessible only to a woman who is very much of our time and yet still in touch with the sacred."
ELLEN BASS's most recent book of poetry, The Human Line (Copper Canyon, 2007) and was named a Notable Book of 2007 by the San Francisco Chronicle. She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the groundbreaking No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Doubleday, 1973) and has published several volumes of poetry, including Mules of Love (BOA, 2002) which won the Lambda Literary Award. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The New Republic, and The Kenyon Review. Among her awards for poetry are a Pushcart Prize, The Pablo Neruda Prize, the Larry Levis Prize from Missouri Review, and the New Letters Prize. Her nonfiction books include Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth and Their Allies (HarperCollins, 1996), and The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins, 1988, 2008). She teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University. In the words of Billy Collins: The Human Line is full of real stunners.
The structure of the workshop
Although this workshop is appropriate for beginning poets, with much support and encouragement offered, it is highly recommended for experienced poets, including those who have published books or chapbooks, are teaching poetry, or have simply been working at the craft for a long time.
This workshop is oriented toward generating new work. We'll start each day with a talk about some aspect of the craft of writing. Then the rest of the morning will be devoted to writing. Unlike workshops where there are multiple short writing prompts, we prefer to schedule longer writing sessions so that there's time to go deeply into your writing. You may not be actually writing that entire time, but there's space for writing, reflection, starting off on a whole new topic, maybe taking a short break to refresh yourself and beginning again.
Then we'll have lunch together and there'll be a little free time--to walk, read, relax, or, if you're burning, to keep writing. In the afternoon, we'll meet to share our work. For these sessions, we'll divide into three smaller groups, one led by each teacher (you'll have the opportunity to work with all three teachers in the small groups). Everyone will have a chance to read and to receive responses, encouragement, and support. Marie, Dorianne and Ellen will also provide guidance and suggestions for those who need or want that.
Then we'll have dinner and the evenings are usually free for relaxing, socializing, talking about poetry—whatever you'd like to do. On the last evening, we'll have a group poetry reading.
The workshop begins with dinner on Tuesday, May 29 and will end with lunch on Sunday, June 3.
The place
This workshop will be held at the The Carter Hall Conference Center, an elegant 18th century estate located on 200 acres of beautiful Virginia country hills just west of Washington, DC. The environment is beautiful and private. The food is wonderful. To see more of the Center please visit carterhallconferences.org.
Costs and registration
Ellen's assistant, Shalom, will be taking care of all registration for the workshop. The fees are all-inclusive, including the workshop, lodging, and all meals.
Fees vary according to whether you prefer a double or a single room. The fee for double rooms is $1750. For single rooms the fee is $2450. It's wonderful to have a complete retreat from everyday life, but if you live very close and prefer to commute, contact Shalom for commuter rates
A deposit of $500 is required to hold your place. The remainder is due January 15, 2012. The workshop size is limited and registration is on a first-come basis. If you need to adjust the amount of your deposit or make a different payment plan, just talk to Shalom. We're flexible and we'll do our best to accommodate your needs.
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Register Today |
Please pay by PayPal or make your check payable to: Ellen Bass
Mail to:
Shalom Victor
338 Walnut Ave.
Santa Cruz, CA 95060.
Shalom can also answer any questions you may have about the workshop (except for scholarship info). Shalom's email is
Refunds
If you find that you cannot attend the workshop, let Shalom know as soon as possible and she'll try to fill your space with someone from the waiting list. If she can fill your space, she'll refund your payment, minus $150 administrative fee which is non-refundable. The sooner you let us know, the more likely that we can fill your space.
Getting there
The closest airport is Dulles which is an hour's drive and there are directions on the Carter Hall website. If you'd like to carpool or share a rental car or get information about car services from the airport, Shalom will help you connect with each other and give you more information.
Questions and concerns
If you have any questions or concerns, please email Shalom at victors75@rattlebrain.com or call her at 831-423-3064. If there's anything she can't answer, of course feel free to ask me.
I hope you can join us!
Ellen
*****************MUSIC MY RAMPART
by Dorianne LauxI can point to the exact place in my chest
where James Taylor's voice reverberates.
I have no defense against that tenor, those
minor keys. It rushes through the aisles of my body
like a priest on dope, trailing smoke, his crucifix
caught in the folds of his robe. I can know
anything I want to know, but my body reveals me.
I sink down beneath the notes, each light-cracked step.
There are nights I jerk awake as if the phone
had rung. But there's no sound except
the refrigerator humming, the joists creaking
in the cold. I watch moonlight move
across the wall and it's as if I could touch
my own sadness, the rooms flung with filaments
that loom in the pockets of my closed eyes.
There's no accounting for it. I open my mouth
and sing Sweet Baby James. I cross my hands
over my breasts like a woman who is happy to die.
**************
MAGDALENE--THE SEVEN DEVILS
by Marie Howe"Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out" —Luke 8:2.
The first was that I was very busy.
The second -- I was different from you: whatever happened to you could not happen to me, not like that.
The third -- I worried.
The fourth - envy, disguised as compassion.
The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,
The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn't stop thinking about it.
The mosquito too - its face. And the ant - its bifurcated body.
Ok the first was that I was so busy.
The second that I might make the wrong choice,
because I had decided to take that plane that day,
that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early
and, I shouldn't have wanted that.
The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street
the house would blow up.
The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer of skin
lightly thrown over the whole thing.
The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living
The sixth -- if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I touched the left arm a little harder than I'd first touched the right then I had to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even.
The seventh -- I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that was alive and I couldn't stand it,
I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word - cheesecloth --
to breath through that would trap it -- whatever was inside everyone else that
entered me when I breathed in
No. That was the first one.
The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened? How had our lives gotten like this?
The third was that I couldn't eat food if I really saw it - distinct, separate from me in a bowl or on a plate.
Ok. The first was that I could never get to the end of the list.
The second was that the laundry was never finally done.
The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did.
And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was
love?
Someone using you as a co-ordinate to situate himself on earth.
The fourth was I didn't belong to anyone. I wouldn't allow myself to belong
to anyone.
Historians would assume my sin was sexual.
The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn't know.
The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling.
The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying.
The sound she made -- the gurgling sound -- so loud we had to speak louder to hear each other over it.
And that I couldn't stop hearing it--years later --
grocery shopping, crossing the street --
No, not the sound - it was her body's hunger
finally evident.--what our mother had hidden all her life.
For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots,
the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.
The underneath ---that was the first devil. It was always with me.
And that I didn't think you--- if I told you - would understand any of this -
**************
WHEN YOU RETURN
by Ellen BassFallen leaves will climb back into trees.
Shards of the shattered vase will rise
and reassemble on the table.
Plastic raincoats will refold
into their flat envelopes. The egg,
bald yolk and its transparent halo,
slide back in the thin, calcium shell.
Curses will pour back into mouths,
letters un-write themselves, words
siphoned up into the pen. My gray hair
will darken and become the feathers
of a black swan. Bullets will snap
back into their chambers, the powder
tamped tight in brass casings. Borders
will disappear from maps. Rust
revert to oxygen and time. The fire
return to the log, the log to the tree,
the white root curled up
in the un-split seed. Birdsong will fly
into the lark's lungs, answers
become questions again.
When you return, sweaters will unravel
and wool grow on the sheep.
Rock will go home to mountain, gold
to vein. Wine crushed into the grape,
oil pressed into the olive. Silk reeled in
to the spider's belly. Night moths
tucked close into cocoons, ink drained
from the indigo tattoo. Diamonds
will be returned to coal, coal
to rotting ferns, rain to clouds, light
to stars sucked back and back
into one timeless point, the way it was
before the world was born,
that fresh, that whole, nothing
broken, nothing torn apart.