Communities
of writers are wonderful and necessary. They nurture and provoke, engage and
challenge. They can take many forms: writers’ groups, workshops, reading
series, salons, open mikes (“mic” looks to me like it’s pronounced “mihk” and
only came into use when “mic” was engraved on recording equipment in the 1980s;
“mike” was the word before then). I am in several: a writers’ group I’ve been
in for more than 20 years (and it’s been in existence for more than 30 years);
a continuing workshop with an old friend focusing on short fiction, as well as
the Blueprint Your Book workshop
with Minal Hajratwala; the Big Words reading series;
and the Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon
and Open Expressions Harlem.
Today the
Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon met at the Brooklyn Workshop Gallery for an
afternoon with featured poet Cynthia Manick. Cynthia led a workshop on
character poems, with examples by Patricia Smith (“Medusa” was really
powerful), Lucille Clifton, Carol Ann Duffy, and Cornelius Eady, and direct
address poems, with examples Chris Abani. We then had the opportunity to write
our own examples, with many amazing poems written in just 10 minutes. Cynthia
read some of her own work. And then the open mike, with, again, many beautiful
pieces of writing. And of course, the Two Writing Teachers, with their Slice of
Life Story Challenge in March, and National Novel Writing Month, in November,
which pushed me to finish the first draft of a novel some years ago (it still sits, with
half a dozen attempts at a second draft, in a drawer).
There are
more out there. In April, National Poetry Month, there are at least a couple of
30 Poems in 30 Days challenges. I hope you are in more than one writing
community; maybe you can join one in April.
Write on!
