Carolyn Martin  should need no introduction; but for anyone who’s not been to one of Carolyn’s Writers’ Mill workshops before, she’s  a Portland poet with an absolutely beautiful website (just follow the link in her name), and some equally beautiful books of poetry, including a Penchant for Masquerades, which has only just come out. Carolyn told us we hold a special place in her heart because she hadn’t taught for a while when we first invited her. Now on her fourth visit to us, she continues to hold a place in our hearts too.

The big question, for writing fiction, poetry, essay or whatever, is where we might get our inspiration from. Carolyn’s suggestions include:

1. Trying out a different voice – perhaps that of a fairytale character or a stranger in the newspaper
2. Travel – new people and places can always inspire, but take notes or you’ll forget what you saw/heard
3. Relationships – especially things said in a relationship.
4. Or search for inspiration: an Aeolian harp has strings which wait for the breeze to play them. While we’re waiting:
   1. Write down ideas or we’ll lose them before we have time to use them
   2. Be a detective of life
   3. Google something: the history of nursery rhymes, quotations, Bible stories…
   4. Play with words – e.g. by signing up for com and word of the day.

Our wordplay began with a list of intriguing (and simple) quotations and an invitation to change where we were sitting. Members were paired by number, an intriguing technique for creating not just new poems but also new friendships! But instead of finishing each other’s sentences, we were asked to choose a quotation together then, in turn, provide lines or phrases or sentences that just might lead to a poem. This was the inspiration phase. Ten lines later (five each) we separated and sculpted what we had, chipping away the unwanted words, adding new ideas, following new branches and creating, each, our own poems. It was interesting to see:

1. How two people bouncing the same ideas off each other could go in such different directions
2. How two people could be so surprisingly in tune with each other’s ideas
3. How two people could inspire each other to such great creativity.

After wonderful snacks and time to circulate and chat, Carolyn led us in a completely different exercise where we were given a list of rather strange dictionary words and definitions and invited to… be inspired by them, use them, do something with whichever of them spoke to us. Jim wrote a truly amazing piece using nearly all the words. David commented on the fact that he and Jim are both left-handed and caused much amusement with his left-handed writing piece. Story seeds, story scenes, poetry and further essays ensued, all truly fascinating and unexpected. Which perhaps is part of the heart of creativity – expect the UNEXPECTED.

If you missed this session, and even if you didn’t, you might want to mark your calendars for October 20th when Carolyn will return to enthuse and inspire us again. Thank you so much for this session, Carolyn!