This is What We Did at the Poetry Workshop.

     A friend asked what we did at the "Tell the Truth, Tell It Slant" workshops at the Richland County Public Library, arranged by Sarah Gough and led by D. Ed Madden, Columbia, SC's Poet Laureate and professor at the University of South Carolina (that is the original USC, but not the nationally-known one).

    Held over four Tuesdays in July. attendance fluctuated but there there an average of 20 people each week. My wife and I were on vacation for the second one.

     The first week we looked at Line Breaks by looking at Louise Glück's "The Red Poppy" and Li-Young Lee's "I Ask my Mother to Sing" not in their published forms, but as paragraphs. Ed asked us to ink or pencil in where we thought the line breaks should be. Then he showed the published forms to us. We spoke about flow and how poems can look when written or printed.

     During the second week there were several handouts,. but since I was not there, I cannot say a lot about what was discussed. Poems were Dana Levin's "In the Surgical Theatre" and Pearse Hutchinson's "Bright After Dark",

     During the third week we made two columns. One was a list of abstract nouns, and the second contained names of historical or fictional characters. Then we wrote a poem from the title of "When Abstract Noun came to Me as Historical/Fictional character". That actualkly was a lot of fun once we got into it. The concluding activity was looking at a picture that accompanied a patent application and writing a poem. We only saw the picture.

     There were also some shorter exercises in all of these sessions, and we could read what we wrote if we wanted to. I geld back to let some of the newer poets have a chance, but responded when asked.

    We concluded with an Open Mic, where members of the class and others who came presented. We had three minutes. I did the Batman poem I wrote for the class. Some of us had done this before, but some were brand-new. It was a warm, supportive group and everything worked well.

     The Richland County Public main library will be undergoing major renovations, so some of their events will have to wait or be relocated. But at least I know people, and they know me. Later on I will talk about how I arranged for a December reading at a branch location.