Port Veritas: Poetry Workshop Day 3

One of our seniors working with Port Veritas poets Nate and Beau.

Unlike Day 1 and Day 2 of this week's poetry workshops, today we started with a new poet, Beau Williams, and only one student in Period 2!

It was amazing.

How often does a young writer get to work with three professional creative writers workshopping his/her own work one-on-one?

Our lucky senior started by sharing last night's writing prompt (see here).  He chose to write about the smell, feel, and experience of working down at the Vinalhaven Fishermen's Co-Op.

The poem was filled with lovely phrases like "the smell of ocean and pennies" to describe the foulness of bait.

Speared bait bags (photo © by Helana Brigman, 2012.)

Some workshopping tips:
1) Play around with a thesaurus.
2) Circle all of the adjectives in your poem and try another one.  See if you like it more.
3) Beau: "give the words the power they deserve.  Confidence is key."

4) Think about the distinction between words.  What do you mean when you say "life" versus "livelihood?"

5) Trim it up: "Rotten fish may just seem like rotten fish / but to the fishermen it's their livelihood" is much more powerful, punchy, and meaningful when condensed to "Rotten fish may seem like rotten fish / but it's their livelihood."

One definition of a metaphor Beau recently heard at a play: "Trying to say one thing by saying something completely different without lying."

Senior student reading poem.

What was great about today is that our student had a lot more voice in how his poem was workshopped.  Because he was talking with Robin, Nate, and Beau one-on-one, he got really comfortable talking frankly about how he was editing and revising his work.  My favorite moment was when our student writer said, "I don't want to criticize you on my own poem...but..." and told Port Veritas's founder, Nate, that he had made an error when reading his poem.  Of course, Nate was very apologetic, but it highlighted the democratizing effect of a poetry workshop.  Student writers, although growing, really do become poets.