Freddy Words

Attendance has really dwindled, so we’ve decided to suspend meetings for the rest of the summer. June 17’s meeting is cancelled. The poetry meetings will also be suspended.

Writerly suggested that we have social events instead, i.e. movie nights and things like that. So we’ll be seeing how that works out. Watch this space for details.

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Susan

Everyone in Freddy Words is invited to the poetry group’s first event, a poetry reading, this Saturday June 14 at Doodles at 2 p.m. Feel free to bring a friend! This isn’t meant to be a public event; the idea is that this will be a way for us to practice reading our poetry publicly in a small and intimate environment.

If you want to read, register by sending an email to freddywords@gmail.com. Bring 3-5 poems to read. They don’t have to be written by you - since this is just reading practice, it doesn’t matter! Just let us know who wrote it.

Non-poetry group members are welcome to bring a (short) piece of fiction (or anything else) to read at the event. Just let me know ahead of time by sending an email to freddywords@gmail.com.

Hope to see you guys there!

May 26

Three members discussed changing the time of the meetings (since Doodles now closes at 5 p.m. during the summer) but decided that Mondays at 6 p.m. are still best for everyone. We also discussed a format change, where instead of reading our poetry at meetings as we have been doing, we try to post at least some of it online for other people in the group to read ahead of time (and so writerly can print these out and bring to meetings). Perhaps we can post our poems to this site? This way we get to better reflect on poems (while still reading them aloud with the group) and give better constructive feedback. We also talked about sharing poetry that isn’t our own (from published poets) so we can get different examples of writing styles that might spur ideas for our own poetry. The assignment for next meeting is to bring in 3-5 poems by a published author to share and discuss.

June 9

Two members discussed the summer status of the poetry subgroup of Freddy Words. Due to lower attendance, there will only be one meeting in July and August, and if Freddy Words suspends meetings for the summer, then we should suspend ours too. We talked about holding social events(for all of Freddy Words) in place of regular meetings for the summer as a way to keep in touch with no pressure (and have those social events we’ve been talking about!).  The poetry reading this Saturday and the publishing workshop next month will still be held.  Then we each read a few of our favourite poems and held a brief discussion. This would be a good exercise to do again when we have more members, or perhaps to do regularly with one poem brought by a different member each meeting.

From a fairly recent Freddy Words meeting. I just found these in my notes. Each written by a different FW member on the spur of the moment.

WWI
lice
rats,
agony

WWII
boats
planes,
booms

WWIII
the Mennonites
will be our saviours

Posted for the June 9 poetry meeting.

***

“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad.”
- T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

I surround myself with the safe, with the sane.
“You know there’s a history of mental illness in my family.”
I devoted myself to botany, to mazes, to the infinitesimal.
I married you to challenge my inevitable end - my human
tranquilizer.

You like my “little poems” but
I scare you when I rock myself over and over
saying I dreamed I killed you again,
I dreamed you killed me again,
and you couldn’t stop the nightmares.

You liked it when I laughed at Plath,
sketched repeating uneven branches of starfish arms.

You are afraid - not just of me,
but what I see and hear that you don’t -
the crusts of blood, slippery dirt-gorged voices.
You like it when I curse creatively,
hate it when paper piles like excrement around me.

Afraid our sloppy physicality
will tear at your maintained monastic cubes,
our “Siren Song,” our red hair flaming into points.
You name our extremities as if decayed already,
the translucent hand,
the ankle frail as a twig.

- Jeannine Hall Gailey

We had two new members and three regular members. Most had brought some examples of bad poetry, and we spent much of the event sharing our worst and being surprised at the reactions of the group. It was actually a great exercise in bringing in a piece of writing you are truly distanced from and have no emotional attachment to, getting really good suggestions and critiques, and - because of the distance - you can actually see what people are saying and how you COULD re-work it if you did this, and this, and that. It was heartening to know that there is something salvageable in even our “worst” writings! I think this is an exercise we will have to repeat at some point.

Discussion centred around the question of whether one loses one’s “voice” when taking a poetry class (i.e. whether a teacher, though grades and feedback, can alter your own natural rhythm and flow). Some people mentioned they would be scared to lose their own voice if they suddenly had a teacher’s voice in their heads while writing, pointing out what’s right and wrong; someone else suggested that perhaps poetry courses are good for beginner writers, but not ones who have already found their voice. Another person suggested that, while this might alter your voice, it would usually be for the better, if you have a good teacher and receive solid feedback from them (and if your class encourages input from other students, that would also help to balance out any opinions that may be based more on taste than what necessarily works or doesn’t).

Older members of the group were surprised to learn that the words “camp” and “kitsch” were no longer in use; apparently we are dated. But they are such cool words! Silly pop culture.

A schedule for the summer was decided; that will be posted soon. There will end up being one meeting in May and June, and two in July and August. There will also be two extra weekend events: a (very subdued) poetry reading in June, and a publishing workshop (i.e. where we work on our submissions together) in July. All events will be at Doodles, and dates will be added to the calendar as soon as I track down my recently misplaced agenda.

The next general meeting of Freddy Words (Tues, April 22 at 7 p.m.) will take place in a secret, undisclosed location. The plan is to meet at Susan’s house at 6:40 p.m. where two people with two cars will drive you all to the sooper sekrit and very special place. (Cars will leave by 6:50 p.m., so be sure to be on time!) There will also be a drive back at the end of the night (meetings usually last 2 hours) to Susan’s, from which you can get yourselves home.

If you are special and in possession of a car, and would prefer to drive yourself straight there, please email freddywords@gmail.com for the address and directions. Also if you need Susan’s address.

If you are planning to come to the general meeting, please RSVP to freddywords@gmail.com.

Four people were in attendance and we each read our assignments from last week: two wrote “a shape,” and two wrote (or shared) poems in a form unlike their regular style, rhymed and free-verse. We also read an extra three poems each and got feedback from the group.

We also had lively discussion on topics such as: the difficulty of coming up with cool titles for poems; and, what constitutes plagiarism exactly?

The next assignment will be the same as last time, but do an option you haven’t done yet: 1) If you normally write poems that rhyme, write a poem in free verse. If you normally write poems which don’t rhyme, try writing one in meter. 2) Write a “negative” or “inverse” version of one of your existing poems, whatever that means to you. 3) “Write a shape.”

For the other poems that you bring to the next meeting, we’re asking that you bring your very WORST poetry. Yes, really. (If you don’t have any or don’t want to share, try WRITING some bad poetry!) Discussion will be to continue a theme brought up at the last meeting: Has every idea already been written? i.e. On some level, is plagiarism avoidable?

The next meeting will be Monday April 14, from 6-9 p.m., at Doodle’s Cafe (Charlotte Street Arts Centre, in the basement).

Please RSVP to freddywords@gmail.com if you are an existing Freddy Words member and are planning to attend.

I’ve decided that from now on, writer’s group meetings will be scheduled based on the month. Specifically, Saturday meetings will be held on the first Saturday of each month, and Tuesday meetings will be held on the third Tuesday of each month, unless some special circumstance requires moving them from those days. This will be less confusing than the way we’ve been doing it up till now. And first Saturdays and third Tuesdays work pretty well. The size of the gaps doesn’t fluctuate too wildly.

So remember: first Saturday, third Tuesday!

Note: I won’t be here for the Tuesday meeting on April 22. I’ll be out of town. But the rest of you can go ahead with it.

[EDIT by Susan]