Pepper

Jackie ♦ May 11, 2008 ♦ 1 Comment

Today was our first workshop day– all of us had emailed copies of our poems to the group, commented on them, and then brought those copies and comments to the group today. We read our poems out loud, then heard comments, then had a minute or so to add or answer, then onto the next poet.

It’s a nerve-wracking experience– I wrote a poem about it actually in college, after my first fiction workshop– but a good and essential one, I believe. There’s an expression common to writers: “Murder your darlings,” from a speech by British author and critic Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who was also a professor at Cambridge (and what a great name, right? A real Harry Potter name). Whenever you find something particularly fine and lovely, you should think about eliminating it unless it’s absolutely necessary to your work. Murdering your darlings is an essential thing to do, and having other writers help you in that process is great, but revealing them to the light of day so that others can ruthlessly cut them down? Difficult, to say the least. But that’s what workshops are for, and learning not to take criticism personally is another essential step in the writerly journey. The comments I got today confirmed some phrases I had hoped were in the right place and helped me single out exactly which darlings needed to be on the chopping block.

Then we went upstairs again to walk through the exhibit and find fruit for next week’s poem, and I found myself drawn again to an Edward Weston photo, this one of sand dunes. After I had scribbled furiously in my notebook, I took myself to the gift shop next and bought the three postcards they had with his images– two more from the Pepper series and one of toadstools. I am really falling in love with his work, which is yet another reason I’m so glad I took this workshop.

I think my poem for next week is not a Weston piece though, but instead a piece by David Hare, better known as a sculptor and playwright, who experimented with photography and Surrealism. We’ll see how it goes– I started three poems today, but only one can be workshopped next week!