| There are many flashpoints in the journey of a writer. Meeting Tee Corinne and Writers Group was one for me. She’s gone; the house is completely remodeled and sold but that moment remains.
I pull into the dirt parking area at Poppyseed and out comes a spry woman wearing a green apron. I’ve come early so our dogs can meet. Tee is very warm, very welcoming, and I feel an immediate connection with her.
Other women arrive. Food is piled up on the dining room table and I am in the kitchen with Tangren, making tea. It turns out that we are both teachers of women’s studies. She has a warm smile and laugh that puts me at ease among all these new women.
I really don’t know what to expect. I jammed some of my poems into my red backpack just as an afterthought before I left Mt. Shasta early that morning. I hope we will be writing together all day.
We settle into Tee’s living room. Susanne is next to me, Jean Mountaingrove to my left, a lively tan woman is across the room from me (Fran), Ní Aódagaín, wearing a purple scarf, is also to my left and Tee is on a large chair with a sketch pad and her yellow lab Georgie at her feet. A big fire burns in the wood burning stove. It’s February.
We go around the circle and each woman asks for a certain amount of time “to read.” I’m starting to get nervous now. I had not planned on this but I bravely and outrageously ask for 30 minutes. I have three poems with me.
Where am I, I keep wondering, as women read their poems, journal entries, book prefaces and magazine submissions. All these silver-haired, mature writers, many of whom have been meeting for twenty years, and me, the blonde from California.
I read a poem and there is a hush, then a collective intake of breath, and an ahh… I know I have just survived an invisible initiation. I am given some powerful, moving feedback that helps shape and craft my poems from rough to polished. Thoughtful, careful, informed feedback is given. Agreements and also disagreements over it. Unbelievably rich. Welcome to writers group — this is how we do it. You are the poet. Take it or leave it. You figure it out.
I am home. This is the group I was seeking and never found during all my years in Santa Cruz. The Southern Oregon Women Writers Group, Chorus and Gourmet Eating Society.
Finally my half hour is over. I am starting to relax again. Then Tee looks pointedly at me and asks how many poems do you have like that? I really have no idea — they are everywhere — in boxes, journals, in files, in the garage. I say maybe 100. Then she really zeroes in on me and asks demandingly, when are you going to publish them? A few of them have been published in journals, I tell her. No, I mean, publish your poems, together, she says. This completely stuns me. Inwardly I am thinking — she must know the poems are good enough to publish but it’s never occurred to me to put them together. I don’t know, I answer lamely. See me after the group and I’ll show you how to do it, she tells me.
I’m trembling with excitement inside. This whole exchange with Tee and the group has taken thirty-five minutes and my writing life has just rocketed ahead.
Later that day, she suggests that I write an article for Woman Source Rising about my experience in Writers Group.
Tee’s voice is still heard in the group. Her words are part of the texture of the group’s tapestry, part of the backbone of our process:
I can do this.
Start writing before you have all the details.
Don’t worry about spelling.
Just keep writing. Don’t worry about whether or not it is “good” writing. Editing can always be done later.
Only you can write your story, your poem.
Some writing blocks are caused because you think you shouldn’t write about something. Write it down. You can always throw it away.
Get started. Keep going.
Get started, keep going.
Finish up. Don’t worry.
Get it done. Get it done.
Get it out there. Get it out there.
Whatever keeps you writing, do more of that.
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beth@shamanicuniverse.com |
