May Announcements
~ From My Writerly World ~
publication news
“Please Don’t Climb: Controversy at the Heart of Australia" appeared online today at About Place Journal—published by the Black
Earth Institute dedicated to re-forging the links between art and spirit, earth and society. The themed issue, Practices of Hope, features art, poetry, prose, video, drama, performance, and hybrid work by 72 contributors selected over several months from nearly 2,000 submissions. One of the editors, Petra Kuppers, said, “I am so glad to have the essay in our collection. I have been to Australia many times, and near Uluru, and I never understand why Western tourists were so adamant on going up there. I love the balance and overview of your essay.”
may day poems
“Maybe poetry is quicker than cells multiplying, and maybe it’s a remedy in itself,” says Kate Belew, who began co-writing poems by email while isolating in her NYC apartment. See the results of this months-long collaborative project between multiple poets!
more inspiration
These days I read little news but soak up portrayals of daily life worldwide via personal narrative and poetry. Yesterday I revised a poem (created from prompts in my own writing workshops) and submitted “How to Pay Attention” to the How To issue of District Lit. If you’re looking for a place to send (or read) work about these “unprecedented times,” check out the following possibilities:
Pandemic Diaries at Passager
Across the Social Distances on tumblr
A Sense of Home folio at Broadsided Press
The Nature of Isolation at Spring Creek Project
In Sickness & In Health: Life in the Pandemic at Pangyrus
another pandemic perspective
As writers we’re especially attuned to language and proper word usage. It has recently come to my attention that unless we’re actually sequestered with a guard outside our door, or our movement is restricted by an enforced curfew—like a woman who joined my Shut Up & Write!™ session from her apartment in Belgrade, Serbia where we heard the banging of pots and pans from balconies in government protest—we are probably not truly in a state of Lockdown.
During a Zoomy Passover seder my relatives and I recalled our ancestral escape from bondage, grateful for safe passage from Mitzrayim—translated as “the narrows,” or constricted place—with its plagues and enslaved existence. We collectively (yet separately in our squares on screen) dipped our spring eggs and greens and bitter herbs in saltwater (to symbolize tears) to remember and take stock.
More and more I am aware of my privileged position during this pandemic, which highlights the relative ease with which I wander rural roads or plant food in my garden in northern California. Compared to the confinement in NYC, America’s coronavirus epicenter, where an uncle who resides there recently described his dinner as “the worst frozen pizza in the world,” it’s easy to maintain a distance in all this space and procure whatever we need (well, maybe not toilet paper).
For an illuminating glimpse of what it means to shelter in place while actually imprisoned, I recommend reading "In the Petri Dish” in The Point Magazine’s online Quarantine Journal (scroll down to April 2).
writing workshops
After mid-May I plan to offer another 6-week writing workshop series, Writing From Memory or Imagination. Each 2.5-hour session combines creative prompts and positive feedback to bolster our writing practice. All writing levels and genres are welcome! Cost is $150. Space is limited. Read excerpts below from some of my recent workshop participants on the theme of Shelter-in-Place.
Something that drew me to using the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) method to facilitate workshops is its widespread reach, effective with people holding advanced degrees to underserved populations like the (formerly) incarcerated women at Voices from Inside where words that are typically silenced find freedom.
For more info: https://www.nicolerzimmerman.com/workshops/
write around the world with AWA
Throughout the month of May, workshop facilitators across the globe volunteer to offer writing sessions that are donation-based, with proceeds to benefit AWA. Join me on Zoom on Wednesday, May 20, 10am–12:30pm PDT or select another workshop.
now featuring a few writers...
...from my ongoing Wednesday workshop series. Please note: the following excerpts are from freshly written work (without any revision), based on a variety of prompts such as: “Find a shopping or to-do list, or a receipt. Write from memory or imagination.” Enjoy. Stay healthy. Be well.
PESACH
By Alana Fichman
The sea of reeds ripped me apart
Biblically speaking
and my blood ran red into the river.
Locusts plagued and cows boiled,
and here we are stuck
with our own plague.
Are we getting enough rest?
Did the Egyptians know they’d been plagued?
Did they think to link the symptoms?
I do not know.
I only know the ending, and the dancing.
The tambourines in my ear,
and the singing.
The stale flat bread and the rich charoset
The salty soups
like tears, fulfilling.
*PESACH is Hebrew for Passover. CHAROSET is a blended mix of nuts and fruits symbolizing the mortar used by slaves to lay bricks.
Hunkered Down
By Tracey Heuer
There’s a little black spider hunkered down in the corner of my room. It too, is sheltered-in-place. Unlike me, he probably doesn’t go through a litany of thoughts:
How long will I be here?
Am I safe?
Will I run out of supplies?
Are my fellow spiders safe?
Are they feeling stifled and trapped?
I guess this little spider is lucky in a way. He just accepts what is. He waits for the warmth of the season to move about. He shelters in place because it’s what he needs to do until he can scamper along and do what spiders do. I’m sure this little guy isn’t stressing out by thinking that somehow he is missing out on life events. How does he remain there day after day... unfazed by what is going on around him?
Ahh, to live the simple life of a spider.
A Clamshell of Strawberries (receipt prompt)
By Macy Chadwick
A clamshell of strawberries, a package of gloves, a pump of hand soap, a box of kitchen bags, a bag of grapes, a bottle of olive oil, one single cucumber, a jar of chunky medium salsa, a roll of select-a-size paper towels. A pack of adult hangers. I picture where each of these items ended up, filling my house full, not enough drawers. This house is a container of things but it also contains light and it contains me. It contains friends and artists and visitors, it contains a few orchids not yet blooming but that I sing to. It contains clutter, damn all the clutter. It contains artwork high on the chair rail shelves, it contains hopes and comfort and love and possibility. It contains lotion for moisturizing, cleaners for keeping safe, kleenex for runny noses, books for inspiration, baby carrots and adult hangers, useful and unuseful, but always full. Never empty. Packed with memories, a small shelf for people I have lost: forget me not seeds and a mah-jong tile. Sugar snap peas and Earl Grey tea, Ultra original soap, seedless grapes, hold them close for comfort and food. Hold me close and keep me safe in this time of uncertainty.
From 25 March_Shelter-in-place
By Leigh Jordan
open door
bird chirps
and again, one answers
also twice, now three four and on
my small garden filled with cold air
and growing budding plants – the Greek Poppy way ahead of others red with black dot against backdrop of cement and earth
brown stone owl peers out overlooking poppies, looking back at me
turquoise pot where a Meyer lemon sits within birds chirp, tweet
cold moves as wind
quiet, quiet
no trucks back beep beep
no rush of fast cars
so very people quiet – wait
wait, just two beeps – as birds fly across
my vision, chirp
I love green it pleases
me, washes me, I look
at my gray board fence as it encloses this
small but porous tableaux
Prompt: Write about routines
By Kyle Omi LeHecka
Routine, routines, routinizing, route—which route do I take today—getting through the simplicity of making choices and then following through. The routine of nature is my balm, opening the door to the crisp, bright blue/white clouded morning and hearing the birdsong this morning took me back to walking the Camino in Spain. We would rise at dawn, drink coffee or tea, pack our belongings in our hostel bunks, in the dimness and head out into the Northern Spanish mountains and plains, silently following the 13th century trails. And the birdsong in May was astonishing to me who is usually in bed at that time. The day could not be spent in a more upbeat way than to be stepping in dance with the chirpy, caw, caw, hoot and screech of the invisible birds awakening to a fresh spring day. My world was simple, yet full of insights as I walked past fellow Camino hikers saying, “Buen día!” For the most part the hike was my own and I chose to make it exhilarating and free, beyond the blisters, knee aches, mishaps like leaving my poles a mile behind at a picnic spot and having to run back to retrieve them . . .