No, I haven’t been to Maine or Alaska, but I did just get back from a fantastic week of poetry in Napa Valley, where Show me a moose and Get wet were the two clarion calls that arose out of poems from our workshop led by David St. John. There are four groups of twelve that meet every morning, each guided by a Master Poet (Elizabeth Alexander, Jane Hirshfield, Stephen Dunn or David St. John). There is no set curriculum, with each Poet having the latitude to assign exercises and processes for the participants to produce a new poem every day and bring to the group for critique. I can’t speak for the other groups, but I was more than thrilled with quality of the participant poets in the group I was in and found the exercises David challenged us with, to be both fun and expansive. (See below for a sample.)

The conference hosts both fiction and poetry writers with craft talks and readings by each of the workshop leaders. It’s a long day, with lectures and workshops during the day and readings every evening. I had to find some time to recoup and to write my poem for the next day, so never did get to any of the fiction writer’s craft talks. The poets each gave great craft talks and I’ve included a couple of quotes from each below.

I have to give it to the administrative staff and all their support staff for running a seamless conference. Ann Evans, Nan Cohen & Willa Rabinovitch, the program directors, were always upbeat, supportive and efficient in taking care of the needs of both the instructors and the participants. Maybe I am just more relaxed, but it seemed to me that this year (I attended in 2005) the whole program was even more harmonious energetically and richer in valuable information on writing. Not to mention the food, (provided by Napa Valley Cooking School) which was super, super good—a light breakfast and delicious lunch every day, with an additional dinner on the first night with a final picnic on Thursday night. It was a culinary feast each day and you know how important it is to have great food when your brain is working overtime. As a vegetarian it can often be slim pickins at workshops and conferences, but these folks got it all right and provided an equal variety of tasty entrees and side dishes for the non-meat eater. 

As for my own process—I came away with a few good poems, but what is more exciting was the ease at which the poems showed up and how much fun they were to write. I don’t always get this—no writer does. But when it happens—WHOOPEE! You get on that pony and ride. I have to give big credit to the assignments that David handed out to us Sunday night. There were about ten of them and his instructions were to pick one every day as a guideline to write the next day’s poem—didn’t matter which exercise or which day. Some of the instructions were to write in a particular form (sonnet, rondelet, triolet), some were to use a particular process (the “martini” poem, dramatic monologue) and some you were to use a particular “evocation” to bring forth the poem (something “lost,” epistolary, or landscape/memory). I have to say, the results were both surprising and impressive, and got more so as the days progressed, not only in my own work, but very much so in how the whole group fed off the inspiration of each other and kept raising the bar, not in a competitive way, but in a supportive one. The caliber of the participants really blew me away, both in the quality of their work and the quality of their critiquing.

To wrap up (and get to the good part, the photos), the week was a success on multiple levels, in that I came away having learned a lot (still digesting), met some wonderful people and connected with others I’d met before, and I feel my poetry “toolkit” has been greatly enhanced. All of these combined to bolster my own work and propel me one inch further along the path of “poet.”

Landscape/Memory Poem Exercise:
Deliver us to a place you once lived, perhaps between the ages of 9 and 12 and describe it with meticulous physical detail. That’s section 1. Now, in section 2, confront the memory of an event or person from that place and time. Let us see the event of section 2 against the backdrop of section 1.

Quick Quotes from the Craft Talks:

Elizabeth Alexander:
Is the poem cleanly achieving its possibilities?
Consider the relationship of the breath to the iambic line.

Jane Hirshfield:
As children go to storybooks, adults go to poems to be rightfully frightened.
A window in a poem is where the poem breaks open—enlarges the view.
Insight is not gained by domestication.

David St. John:
A poem is a model of consciousness—an experience.
You can seize a language that belongs to you through writing poetry—bring the fullest sense of yourself.

Stephen Dunn:
Where the poem turns is where the poet makes their most significant discovery.
Grace is what occurs when technique has been loved for a long time and then forgotten.

 
Hilda & I flew into Sacramento and drove the back roads to St. Helena. This "luggage sculpture" is in the baggage claim at Terminal 2.

The first night’s reading was outside at the Napa Valley Community College, where the course was held.

 
A few of the participant poets in the David St. John workshop preparing for the morning. The tables were sprinkled with glue, paint and who-knows-what ground into them, making for a very "artsy" surface on which to muse and write.

Hilda & I in front of the fountains at the Rubicon Estate where the third day’s reading took place.

 Roy, our host at the Spanish Villa Inn where we stayed in St. Helena. Hospitality PLUS!

Hanging out on the lawn. Ann knitting, Nan in stripes, Jane Hirshfield standing at left.

Milling about before the food arrives at the picnic.

 Mickey (from Alabama), Greg & Joel finishing up their yummy meal with good conversation.

David and Greg working on their poems (or, maybe not).

Christina and Melissa, two of my roommates from Squaw Valley last year. 

First Books Panel: Austin Grossman (fiction), Indigo Moor (poetry) and Albert Flynn DeSilver (poetry). Indigo was in my workshop with Jane Hirshfield in 2005. You can check out (and buy) his book, Taproot, at Main Street Rag Publishing. 

Last day, eating our bagged lunches and saying Good-bye (David, Christina, Bonnie & Wendy) 

Wendy (from Virginia) and her partner, Gary (who was there for moral support and is a poet and professor and all-round nice guy.) 

Hilda & I bid Adieu to the Spanish Villa and a great week of poems!