poetry, fiction, drabble, excerpts, rough work
This month’s writing challenges to myself:
Theme:
Structure:
Rewrite/Rework:
Assignment: Write in third person from the viewpoint of someone under 10 years old doing something completely new to him/her, focusing on sensory detail to overcome the difference in vocabulary (cf. Clark Blaise, “Broward Dowdy”).
Allie’s aunt Clara was a tower of a woman in a slim taupe pantsuit, with brown hair cut in a neat, severe bob. She had to lean forward a bit in order to fit her door frame. Aside from her long, narrow nose, she looked nothing like Allie’s mother, her sister, who always wore her long hair down and hated wearing shoes.
Upon seeing the two of them in her doorway, Clara did not smile, but looked them up and down in a brisk nod. Allie looked up at her warily and took a bite of the sandwich her mother had given her in the car.
“Well, girls. Won’t you come in?” Clara’s voice was deep and low, not like Allie’s mother’s at all. Allie tightened her grip on her mother’s hand as Clara leaned down and took the small brown suitcase that sat at Allie’s feet, then turned around and went inside. Allie’s mother tugged on her hand and led her into the house.
Inside, the house was as enormous as it was outside. Allie supposed it had to be, in order to accommodate Clara’s height. It was draughty and smelled like nothing, except for the conspicuous aura of her house that still clung to Allie’s coat and her mother’s sweater. The foyer was rectangular, with one doorway on each side leading to another room. The room was empty except for a round, dark wood table with a thin plaster statue standing atop it, and a long, narrow painting of a yellow field of wheat that hung on the back wall. In the corner, a tall, spiralling wooden staircase went up through the ceiling to the next floor. The walls were marbled white and looked smooth, but Allie did not rush to touch them – the whole place felt precariously arranged, as if one touch would send it crashing to the ground.
“Would you like something to drink?” came Clara’s voice from the next room. It sounded faint in the silence that overpowered the house.
Allie’s mother let go of her hand and walked away, but Allie did not follow her. She stared up at the staircase, at the steep wooden stairs that led to nothing and the rails that looked like polished bones. She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed it slowly. It was bologna and mustard, her favourite. It was the only thing that felt anything like home right now.
Assignment: Take a situation from your own life involving 3 or more people, then substitute characters from the same movie for characters in the situation.
Second draft. I may expand the fourth verse.
They all went to the Hatter’s party:
Caterpillar, March Hare, Tiger Lily, Dormouse,
the Cheshire Cat and his crazed teeth,
even the White Rabbit,
finally out of the house.
They had taken tea many times before,
these six, laughing and clapping hands.
They pondered and schemed,
played riddles and chess,
and drank to their dear Wonderland.
But this tea time, there was no laughter.
Something in the forest had changed.
They did not drink to their happiness now,
but passed the tea with shaking paws,
and shuddered it down, feeling strange.
They drank and they drank and things got worse:
The Caterpillar and March Hare duelled, and both lost;
the Dormouse spilled his tea and fell asleep;
the Cheshire Cat’s grin grew wilder-eyed,
and the Tiger Lily flapped and raved in disgust.
And even the staid and stern White Rabbit
drank much more than he was able;
he forgot his engagements
and ticking pocket watch,
and he slid straight under the table.
Today I ventured to Mile-End for the first time, to a café to see Neil Smith, Zoe Whittall, and Jon Paul Fiorentino read as part of the Blue Metropolis Literary Series. All three were good. I stayed afterward because I didn’t want to leave – the place gave me a feeling I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and I tried to write it out. This is an edited version of what I wrote when I was there.
6:15 pm: I can’t help but feel like a speck of dust that has chosen to materialize at this exact moment in this exact place: insignificant and lonely and right in the thick of it.
7:30 pm: Maybe I’ll stay in Montréal after university. Live north of the mountain, write in cafés, work in a bookstore. By then my French will be good enough. Know the people who give the readings I attend. Think about going back to Toronto, never commit until 5 or 8 years later when I decide to go home in a grand and cosmic moment of “this city is fucking me up”. Realize that my eternal idea of Toronto was formed in 2006: secret swings and mashed potatoes, sushi and Queen West in the summer. Try to live with a city that I adore that has moved on without me.
7:50 pm: (After reading a bit of Bottle Rocket Hearts): I read so intently it makes my jaw clench somewhere around my ears. It feels like gripping the railing at the edge of a cliff, and if you let go you know you’re going to get that butterfly tightness in your gut that means falling. Is this what it’s like to find something perfect? (I almost wrote “love”. I can’t pretend I know what love is. I can’t pretend I don’t know what love is.)
The piano is sitting in the corner, cool and James Dean casual. I want to fall asleep in the arms of this warm wood room, rest my head against its solid brick chest, feel it nestle its jazz and mirror ball lighting in my hair, wake up in a loving old-souled embrace.
The original assignment was to write the beginning of a short story to the “then” moment (see Clark Blaise’s essay, “To Begin, To Begin”). This assignment was to rewrite it, having received notes on it. I’m not going to bother with the original version because I don’t like it, but the second one came out twice as long and light years better. This is the beginning of the beginning.
For the summer between her second and third years of university, Stephanie Chau had decided not to go back to Halifax. Instead she stayed in Montréal, where she could hold her job at the supermarket and where her boyfriend Ryan came over every night to make dinner and water the cacti on her windowsill.
For two months it had been absolutely perfect. Stephanie hadn’t missed the salt water or the beach, or her sister, or drinking at the Marquee until 3 AM. She had found a sort of Zen in carrying crates of milk cartons and in the mysterious pink and orange flowers her cacti sprouted. The dinner wine tasted sweet and full. She couldn’t remember what it felt like to sleep alone.
Then Ryan stopped coming, and she wished she could forget what it felt like to sleep with someone else beside her. The cacti, grieving, shrivelled into themselves. Stephanie started eating instant noodles for dinner every day, alone in her apartment in front of the computer or an endless stack of books. She cut her hair to her chin and stopped drinking. She considered getting a cat, but knew she would only kill it.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
The assignment was to write a poem of no more than 20 lines expressing something real and authentic, using only the words found in a given advertisement for Liebherr refrigerators – no changing tense, no pluralization. After making lists and many failed attempts, this is what I came up with at 2 AM:
One in three don’t make it
it’s not as easy as it looks
to be committed, to comply and be good;
in a new environment,
restriction can be hazardous.
you want to look at a choice not in your reach,
and to be the other one can make you green;
all that restriction can be healthy
if you can delight in the good you are given
(that is not easy to keep here).
Afterward, now free of the restriction (and I think all the words in that sentence were in the ad), I decided to edit in a few words that I had wanted to put in there but couldn’t. One edit led to another, and the final result is this poem, which I actually like:
Long Distance
when you’re let loose in a brand new backyard,
you just want to run and feel the grass under your feet;
the last thing you think of is putting up fences
and what you left behind indoors.
you want to taste the apples just out of your reach,
and missing that chance makes you green;
but not having a ladder is good
if you are happy with the fruit you already picked
(which is hard to remember in
so ripe an orchard).
hungry dogs on street corners
don’t bother dancing for biscuits
they just lie on the ground
with dead puppet stares
as if
once they hear the clatter of coins
their eyes will light up
and their flat ragged bodies
will remember how to chase tails
Written for poetry class, 22-23 Sep 2007, from a list of 20 words about an object.
in the setting sunlight his eyes seem green
gaze heavy as the Toronto August air
vines of hair obscure his face
leaving pink shadows waiting to be explored
his breath feels fresh and sweet
lips like summer fruit
ripe and perfect under yours
refreshing your memory of
a first juicy bite
the dusk air is cool on fevered skin
as he removes your worried rind
gestures made messy by nerves
he says he hates his skin, but the red scabs
and hard spots remind you of playing outside
and the tender places are newer sensations
softly you kiss seeds of affection along his shoulders
his voice is warm sweet earth in your ears
and as your flesh touches
your shell splits and comes off your body
left to crisp in summer heat
