By Alice Trego
Usually when I go to a writing conference, I attend
workshops I believe will enhance my writing style, develop my voice, and hone
my vocabulary.
This year at the 21st Annual Women Writing the
West Conference in Redmond, OR, one of the Thursday pre-conference sessions,
“From Shadow to Dance: Form, Function and Peripheral Vision in Poetry,” became
a writing stepping stone for me. One that motivated and inspired me to pick up
pen anew and set to paper the stories I’ve been wanting to write.
This presentation, given by WWW member Ellen Waterston, is
where I learned that observing via our peripheral vision, noticing the things
around us we take for granted, are impetus that can heighten our creativity and
writing. Ellen suggested we might use a “frame,” an actual picture frame or
shape our fingers together to form a different kind of frame, so we can find a
focus. She also recommended we “…notice the temperature of words, the sounds of
words…” to help polish our own words for our poetry or our prose.
Ellen showed the small group how we can find the right words
that most elude writers. Besides using a thesaurus, incorporating various
prompts can be effective writers’ tools. One prompt she described involves writing
a list of 20 nouns and then listing 20 “subject-specific” verbs, blending them
as many ways as possible to form “word collisions,” which all compel the reader
to notice our deliberate vocabulary.
Another prompt she introduced is called “Borrowed Lines.”
Each of us in the workshop opened a poetry book to a random page. We chose the
first sentence that attracted us, and wrote it down on a piece of paper. We
then passed the book to our right and the paper to the left. This we repeated twice more, and each of us
ended up with a paper that had three sentences retrieved from three different
poems. Here are my three sentences:
“A
fragrance heavy as dust, and two young women…”
“The
sound was purple…”
“So
expertly she plays the chords…”
The next step was to choose single words, or phrases, or the
whole sentence from the three sentences to begin our own poems. Ellen gave us a
few minutes, and the result I found astounding. I have no idea where my words
came from! But I know that writing a poem using this method can lead to an
interesting piece of prose, as well. This is the poem I wrote:
“The
purple sound gave fragrance to the night women
Expertly
standing on the pavement,
Their
garb and makeup heavy as dust
Reflecting
off the buzzing neon.”
What intrigued me first in these “Borrowed Lines” -- “the
sound was purple.” Immediately in my mind I saw a neon sign, two young women of
the night standing on a corner, their makeup “heavy as dust,” their faces
reflecting the neon light that buzzed.
For me, this exercise was an eye-opener. I discovered I had
enhanced my writing style, developed my voice to another level, and I had honed
my words. Maybe I paid attention to my peripheral vision, too?
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Alice Trego, WWW Past President, enjoys reading poetry, especially
to discover what the poet is really saying to the reader by reading between the
lines. This workshop was the third time she’s actually written a poem or two.
For more information about Ellen Waterston, check her web site
