Another peek into the Writer's Rest Room. . .

From the Writer's Rest Room

Welcome to the Writer's Rest Room.

Women's Writing Workshop

"We write to taste life twice." Anais Nin

Leading Women's Writing Workshops

Each week I place flowers on the mantle, choose tea from the tea cabinet, set out dark chocolate and cookies and then wait for the door to swing open. By then I've scoured the books on my shelf, the library, bookstores and soared the web in search of the best poems I can find. I gather them all in, reading up to fifty poems a week in my search for the perfect ones to present to the women who walk in this door. I practice reading the words until I can taste them, feel their heft. I read as if I'm spooning dessert into the mouths of the listener. I place the poems together the way I imagine a jeweler might set jewels.

The door opens and women begin to arrive. There's a feeling of coming home, of returning to an essential place. There are quiet hugs, slipping off of shoes and heading to the cabinet to choose a tea cup before sinking into their chair.

I start the workshops by reading poetry because it helps us settle in.  I found that poems are arrows to the mark, hitting the truth, the place in us that flourishes with words.  So  I lead us in to our own writing through the windows and doors of poetry.

Poetry saves our lives, enhances our days and deepens our soul. 

I came from school poems, poems chosen by someone else, usually by dead people, whose meanings escaped me showing my stupidity and often confusing me.  The poems I was force fed were slapped down on my desk on mimeographed sheets, chosen by adults who didn't, as far as I knew, keep journals, scribble ideas on scraps of paper or have pens they were passionate about. I was never taught writing by a writer. I was led in art classes by artists, music classes by musicians but never led into the mystery of following silence, slim glimmers and ink along a page, by a writer. How is this possible? How is it that we allow "non-writers" to teach us and our children and think this is okay?

I discovered a love of poetry and writing on my own.  And now I pass this along to other women as we step out of the rush and lists of life, sip our tea, uncap our pens and dive into the undersea of what surfaces when ink flows.  We create art from our lives rather than having our days river away on us.  We write to taste life twice.  We write to save our lives.