Writers’ Mill Minutes, July 15th  2018

A small group met this month, braving the heat to enjoy a very inspiration-filled writers’ workshop led by the ever-popular Carolyn Martin.

Carolyn started the meeting by splitting us into teams of 2 or 3 and giving each team an envelope of famous last words, each quote being printed on its own small strip of paper. The teams were asked to combine quotes into one or more poems, an exercise that caused much laughter, required plenty of scotch tape, and resulted in the surprising fact that nearly everyone thought

My exit Is the result of too many entrees / I’m going to the bathroom to read

go together, and that Swan costumes belong with bullet-proof vests.

As writers, we repurpose lines; we don’t steal them. And we rationalize everything. If you would like to rationalize and repurpose in this manner, try googling “famous last words” on the internet and reorder your own quotes. https://www.phrases.org.uk/quotes/last-words/index.html might offer some ideas.

• Do we need permission to “quote” famous last words this way? Not as long as we say where we got them from.
• Can we change the words? Yes’ change anything. The idea is to help us break out of those rules about line length, stanzas and rhyme.
• Can we quote song lyrics? Music tends to be more restrictive. Be careful—Robin says no more than seven words are allowed.
• The general rule is: If you’re making money, you should always ask permission.

After the break, Carolyn gave us more tips for chasing inspiration—more ways to find words which we can repurpose to fill blank pages on our screens. The search for poetic inspiration turns out to be surprisingly similar to research for a historical novel…

• Look for online prompts such as:
  • https://visualverse.org/
  • http://www.thefirstline.com/
• Keep a file or several files, real or on the computer, filled with ideas so that when you sit down, you have something to refer to:
  • Sensory images, photos…
    • Works of art, which  might generate ekphrastic poems (or look at visualverse, above)
  • Lines from other favorite poems might make good jumping-off points
  • Quotations are filled with words.
  • Intriguing facts can be gleaned from watching TV or reading a novel
    • Scientific details, such as a frog that listens with its mouth!
    • History of nursery rhymes, such as Humpty Dumpty being a cannon, or Mary quite contrary being Bloody Mary!
    • Pati recommended Kory Stamper’s Secret Life of Dictionaries

Carolyn ended the session by giving us a list of fortune cookie promises, inviting us to create erasure poems (find a word or phrase, delete everything before it; read forward to the next word or phrase that you want to keep then delete what you skipped; etc till you come to an end), modified erasure poems (where you add/subtract or alter words or phrases), or just let one of the promises inspire us. More fascinating poems ensued, followed by a promise that Carolyn will return so mark your calendars: Our next writing workshop with Carolyn will be on April 21^st 2019. It’s the 4^th Sunday in the month instead of the 3^rd, because the 3^rd Sunday is Easter.

Cookies and drinks, brought by Sheila and Jean, were consumed during the break, after which awards were handed out by Karin for June (to Richard, Jessie and Sheila) and by Richard for July (to Matthew, Robin and Jessie). Jessie (Sheila’s Mum) is clearly on a roll, and has already booked her flight to see us in December and January.

Upcoming contests (1200 word limits, entries to contest at portlandwritersmill dot org) are:

• August, hosted by Joanne, victim vs survivor: discreet language and details please (which is frequently more difficult than indiscreet, so it adds to the challenge); deadline Sunday August 5^th
• September, hosted by Jessie, growing older, essays stories or poems; deadline September 2nd. Jessie is 90, and Sheila is asking you, if possible, to give permission for your entries to be published through the library’s account in a small gift book. This book will be uploaded before your very eyes in November (assuming we can make it all work). No problem if you say no to publication, but let’s get as many publish-permitted entries as we can, and we’ll produce a Writers’ Mill Growing Old collection, with printed copies in time for Christmas.
• October, hosted by Richard, Wired, deadline October 7th
• November, hosted by Matthew, Reunification, deadline November 4th.