Monday, July 11, 2005

New Writers Group

Lots of excitement these days :

I went to a meeting of writers at our local library - thought maybe there'd be one or two (silly me) and there were almost 20! We agreed to start a writers' group which is awesome. Not a lot of poets, but I'm excited to try my hand at workshopping short stories.

There's going to be a Writers' Festival in Whistler this fall, only 40 minutes away. While I can't make it to everything, there will be mentor workshops and I have just heard that the mentor, Susan Musgrave, has agreed that poetry can be part of the mix. I will be able to workshop with Susan directly - which is both exciting and terrifying. It's one thing to write poetry in my midnight room, and quite another to be face to face with a 'real' poet. All this time I have workshopped and developed my poetry entirely through the internet. Suddenly I am going to be mingling with flesh and blood.

Someone is putting an anthology together for our local area - we call it the Sea to Sky Corridor, runs from Vancouver to Whistler. Because the Olympic Games in 2010 are going to be here, a lot of things are happening. The Writers' Group in Whistler has received grants and funding - there's a lot of interest in raising the cultural profile of the entire corridor. Anyhow, one of my tasks today will be to choose 5 poems to submit to the anthology.

Once again I am participating in A Poem A Day on mikeduron.com - it encourages me to write something everyday - even if just a little piece, or a prose piece, or a list. Some great poems happening over there. Tonight (I always do it after my daughter has gone to sleep) I'm going to write a 'table of contents'.

Yesterday I cashed a check for $60 - my first payment for poetry. In summary, I have had 3 poems paid-for-published. I need 5 to apply for a Canada Council Grant. These past two weeks have been very fulfilling. I've had time off to write and read and get involved in the literary world and I like it. A lot.

He didn't know honey
when we met
I started it
amber sticky
my lips formed the first oh
my tongue curled
to lift it from its earthenware
lie it down upon his bread
his wheat he didn't know sweet
until then
I gave it to him
now he smears it everywhere
now he spreads it
for her
dips and scoops
and drops it
almost by mistake
like a joke
'here you go honey ... oops'
yah well,
so many honeys in this world
the bountiful field
bloom and blooms

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