Paint, Body Parts and Telephone Messages

Hello Squamish Writers

Our meeting Wednesday October 11 started poorly. The DOS recently painted our meeting space amd left the rooms full of paint, tarps, equipment and extreme smell. We were unable to use the building so milled about outside for a while until one of our members kindly offered up her house. Gratefully we accepted.

As a result of the unplanned migration, our meeting was a bit shorter than usual but well worth the effort. The assignment for this meeting was: "Write something about, or to, a body part." The results were excellent!! In fact, I'm going to prepare a little email packet for everyone with copies of pieces. If you have a piece and were unable to attend this meeting, please email it to me jude@goodwinstudios.com and I will include it!

Our next meeting will be in the 'newly painted' SAC building October 25 at 7:00 pm. The assigment is 'write a telephone message for each of five days'. For more on this assignment, which can be poetry, prose or anything else of course, read below (hat tip Wild Poetry Forum)

Writers wishing to offer up topics or items for the agenda please feel free to do so! Send them to me at the email above and I'll put out a note the Monday prior to the meeting.

Until then, happy writing!

Jude


AFTER THE BEEP

So many of us are so busy these days that we let voice mail do the talking for us. In fact, most people complain that they talk to the answering machines of people they need to contact more than to the people themselves. And considering that, we'd all like to hear a good greeting when we get the answering machine, wouldn't we? Something that goes beyond the standard, "Leave a message after the beep." Can we use this idea to generate a poem? Esther Altshul Helfgott did in the following example:

Reaching Me: Voice Mail Instructions

Monday

On this weekday, Mother washed our clothes,
got down on her knees in front of the tub
and scrubbed. In anticipation of the job to follow,
she sang: �On the line, on the line,
all my little children�s clothes are on the line.
If you want to get �em clean,
you have to rub and scrub,
and hang those clothes out to dry.�
Leave me a message, after the beep.
Beeeep.

Tuesday

This is the day to wash the dog,
but I�m too busy reading Marie Cardinal
to wash the dog. Do you have a dog?
Have you read Cardinal?
How come you�re calling anyway?
Sing me a message, won�t you?
I shan�t laugh;
will you, after the beep?
Beep.

Wednesday

My writing needs a rest. So do I.
So why are you bothering me with your call?
Don�t you ever rest during the day, cuddle up
with pencils, crayons and paint? A fun little
�zine? Go away. Call again another day.
Unless you just must leave me a message.
Then, of course, you can � after the beep.
You�ll only have three minutes though.
So get ready, get set. Go!
Beep.

Thursday

It�s a fool�s day, so leave me a fool.
After the beep. Beep.

Friday

I�m off for the weekend, but only after
I finish the bibliography for the paper I�m writing.
So I can�t possibly answer your call right now.
I have to get through. Oh, if I only knew
what tomorrow will bring. I think I do.
I hope I do. Do you, for you? Tell me a tale,
specific to you. After the beep. Beep.



These greetings have the sound of free associational thinking. By allowing herself that freedom, Ms. Helfgott included fanciful things she may not have in a more serious vein. Her daily greetings have personality and presence. They challenge the caller to have them, too. The voice becomes clear � that of an educated, friendly, uninhibited but private woman who inspires me to leave her an entertaining message, and who I certainly hope will get back to me.�

Write a free verse poem that contains the greetings people would hear if they got the answering machine of your selected narrator. Include a different greeting for every day of the work week (Monday through Friday), as Ms. Helfgott did, or for every season of the year (spring, summer, autumn, winter). You can write this poem in your own voice, or select the voice of someone else whose greetings you would like people to hear (i.e., your spouse, your doctor, your boss, etc.) Make certain your greetings have presence and that a specific voice emerges that represents the personality of your narrator. Remember to think about the sounds, line breaks, tone, specificity of images, and how the images build so the poem weighs more at the bottom than the top. Please keep this poem to 40 lines or less.

~An exercise from �Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems from Your Life Experiences� by Sheila Bender