Reflections on SIWC 2018

Wow.  Busy weekend and then a busy week.

I have so many things floating around in my head from the conference, and I thought I'd begin to organize them a bit by reflecting here on my blog.  My first thought is to say that I feel this conference gave me some real tools I can use for a long time to come, and lots of creative ideas, some I've implemented already. As I process through these practices, I will have more to say.

I wandered into a poetry workshop when I meant to go to fiction, and got two good poems out of it. Well, one I've finished; one that still needs to be looked at.  I'm quite happy with both of them.

One thing I can say about this conference is that in three different workshops the presenters had us working collaboratively to create something: a story outline, a poem, and a song.  That was tons of fun, and something I can transfer to my own teaching immediately.

The first day, the first workshop was poetry with Major Jackson. He played a piece of music and asked us to write one line of a poem, which we subsequently read out loud. Then we had to give our line to someone else.  A young man named Clay (high-schooler from Seacrest in Naples) had the line "Music is a form of expression."  I had written "Light - radiance - signature."  I felt my line matched his, so I was on my way to exchange with him, when another girl gave me hers, and I felt obligated to give her mine.  Two minutes later, Clay walked up to me and gave me his -- so I wrote mine down for him.

We then studied a form called Epistolary, or letter poem.  We were then given instructions to write a letter poem and make sure we incorporate the line we were given. The letter could be to anyone. I chose to write mine to Clay.

Letter to Clay

Dear Clay

We have no memories together

To fall back on, besides you handing me

Your line “Music is a form of expression,”

So all I can do is share my memories.

I have come to realize the expression

Of music stems from the land, mountains, rivers,

And cities, of our country, which is how the blues were

Born in the Mississippi Delta and why Hip-Hop

Came out of Brooklyn, Grunge in Seattle,

Country and Bluegrass from the mountains

And the hills and the people who settled there.

Jimmie Rodgers, the great American music pioneer,

Took the sound of the trains from his small town

Of Meridian and made music, and several miles

Away Howlin’ Wolf used the same sound with his voice.

They say write what you know, and that goes for all

Expression, music included, and these cannot be

Separated. Dylan took lines from an English Ballad

To write “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” and when I fell

In love with the Beatles singing “Roll Over Beethoven”

I was really falling in love with Chuck Berry. It was many

Years before I knew Elvis singing “Hound Dog”

Was borrowed from Big Mama Thornton, who sung it

With much more soul, gusto, and passion. We borrow

These expressions and make them ours, and that is

The way it works. We express in a way that others can hear,

And that is the path to being respected and accepted. I don’t know

If you play music, Clay, but I encourage you to seek the root

Of all things you love, to walk the land, touch the earth,

Wade the rivers and deltas where these sounds emerged.

I’m sorry it took me so long to figure this out. American music

Forms are an expression of the history of our country.

This, I believe, is the soul of musical expression.

Signed, mandolin-playing Helen

Dockery Farms in Sunflower, Mississippi: Birthplace of the Blues