Starting Monday I will be offering up my poems for workshop in an MFA Summer Residency. This is the second of three summers, the cornerstone of a program that pushes us all to improve as writers.
I feel that my writing is becoming more personally resonant and more open. There is more freedom as I sit down to write. Last semester, my class engaged in discussion about self-censorship and why it is essential that we not censor our words in our writing. There are no longer “off-limit” topics. If there was a topic that I avoided, I am forcing myself to go there and write about difficult subjects, characters, and events.
Writing is an art and it is therapy. You might call it “free therapy,” but anyone who writes knows that in reality there is a cost to laying yourself bare on the page. Writing digs deep into our human emotions. Not to mention the fact that poems are meant to be read aloud, and reading aloud in workshop or on stage such raw poems is tough.
Step by step. I will start with the writing and the workshopping process. Later, I’ll step my toes into the process of sharing with an audience: submitting to publications and reading aloud in public.
Art is emotion and it can be hard to wrap your brain around sharing it with the world.
But, this is why we write, and especially why we are in an MFA program.
We are taking steps to share our experience.
writerundle 