Jack Grapes Workshop, CPITS draft

DRAFT

Jack Grapes workshop 2014
Writing is about improv and subtext
inspiration will kill you every time if you don't have a craft
talent is your biggest enemy.
Transformation line has it has an I am in it
Birthday cake
Horizontal message
Vertical message
Image//movements
Bookends, action, dialogue seven elements behind each idea

Think of your poem as a set with props with mad characters
the set dressing, the costuming, the thoughts and feelings exposed
Transformation line is a personal statement.

The objective to the super objective the aha moment that's what you're looking for
The props versus being creative versus teaching the fundamental process.
Courage and freedom to make mistakes don't use gimmicks line method writing writing is the inverted pyramid one transformation line to image/moment

Paul Elouard said the difference between pros and the poem is the line it's all about the dual meaning at least in French.
Voice rhythms of your authentic voice shape shapes your poetry and your prose.
The methodology that opens you up to the creative process
Sometimes it it can be crap
The good is the enemy of the best trust your process get the accidents of genius get the authentic voice don't dumb your poem down

Transformative line the body, creative pros, hands, heart, not brain – massage it
Word massage one right about birthday cake to have a horizontal and vertical structure
When my brother walked in I was hiding the birthday cake the transformation get rid of the birthday cake I was hiding
Get lost I got lost I got lost on route to Petaluma which is juiciest
If you think talent is your enemy then is story your nemesis?
Put down the ducky to play the saxophone

Massage your transformation transformation is the answer
What is the story of my life
What is the truth of who I am
You have to be lost in the middle of your life.

Amazing grace
I got lost, I lost my wife I lost my way
Repeating that transformation
The horizontal versus vertical the direct object

I got lost, I lost myself, I lost my way repeat that transformation
Horizontal horizontal versus vertical
Not pyramid death
I got lost, I was hiding, I lost my wife
I'm unattractive
I'm ugly
I'm not a good person

I'm a bad boy my mother locked me in the closet, I no longer an adult I can't shake it that insecure vulnerable objective manipulative manipulative life your voice has to go deeper that's when people will listen that deep still vulnerable vulnerable page turner deep voice the personal tone of voice

The objective is to manipulate your voice in order to go deeper

One head voice that's analytical to report your voice those are facts exposition three deeper voice your mouth your gut your chakra

Get your voice deep that's when people will listen
Deep, still, vulnerable, the page turner, the deep voice, the personal
Tone of voice hooks you into a piece of writing. pay attention
Pay attention
Put down the ducky one I don't feel like try I don't feel

I am always on the lookout for package
Don't miss the line
I'm always on versus look out massage it
Transformation I am always…
I am always late… For stories or process

This process allows you to write out of the drop of a hat. It's okay to be crap. Get rid of your dependency on inspiration. You gotta put down the ducky.
Transition is a bridge versus transformation don't think – see! Please please whatever you do don't think
It ruins poetry.
Image, moment
See is one of the senses to write down what you see image image image three what are we doing with our thinking caps open the floodgates
Write without thinking something will come it always comes

To please others opening to vulnerability don't think, see we're trying for work we're frying bigger fish here
Write from the other side of the same coin
Not opposite
I always take I never give duality stereoscopic view, what's the story of my life
Think of this physiological accuracy the mechanical formula the image and moment
If your mechanics aren't down, your process won't hook work.
Mechanics practice the physics of writing
Image moments is like a cinematic affect the reader sees it and makes it vivid

The idea of a movie versus book which is better is God God? Beckett says I can spell anything less than a minute right that short span of a few seconds between two bookends there's the poem the two slices of bread or Stones in a sandwich one bookend to moment one again bookend action or dialogue doesn't last longer than two seconds nothing can happen between bookends nothing happens between bookends the moment the one to see not even the image the moment the event the story to

Brushing your teeth is an event not an action nor is it a dialogue

Telescoping down the action. Tara what will do rat frankly my dear I don't give a damn major stops stops Casablanca image moments in the film how do we replicate that the cell is seven elements we need to have before those bookends

Visual
One set where are you in the palm? To the set dressing the furniture the character the setting the scene the objects these are permanent items three your props small objects no bigger than the palm of your hand not important to the story a cigarette, a pencil grasses if I'm wearing it then it's costume for mood for the five senses taste, smell, feel something with sound use lighting see used minister versus set directly addressing inanimate go through paperwork numbers one through four again as soon as we do did a person creates a sex soon as we add a person creates a second tap five develop your characters six costume seven commentary backstory exposition thoughts and feelings are backstory
Bologna sandwich bread seven pieces of filling bread bookends shape of poem
This process slows time down
Filmic writing
You were wonders how to respond it's not real time it's his psychological time in the moment
How many sentences you need as much as you want
Show – don't tell Scarlett what would I do show the reader, don't tell Brett frankly my dear I don't give a damn
What most writers are guilty of is telling versus showing. Line
I can't tell you how long to suspend a moment
I can't tell you the order of the elements
You have to feel the rhythm and the pace of the peace each one is worth a certain value
What do you use to stretch your psychological time Jack says words suspended time 100 years of solitude to the white hotel DH Lawrence 400 pages of images and moments the closure only happens at the end
Image expand that image and the moments line number of words
Movie cuts not 24 frames, but 12 you have the subliminal moment which is about a second then two seconds the murder weapon then he lifted the gun and pointed it then you have a lot of action shot
Moment
You want to freeze time the concrete and technical
The golf swing, the boxing, the footwork that for
Writing is specific
We do it into these are our tools art is in the making
The character is not just a character it's a physical attribute character use physical detail simple declarative statements
Use the inverted pyramid write the poem backwards right not conventionally right disconnected image, dialogue trance formation line


I am most at home among the riches I am myself among the hills.
Her shoes clattered on the pavements I heard of ponies or goat hooves
Her shoes clattered on the road
like a herd of goats
the flies practiced vertical ascent in late afternoon
why should I heal on someone else's time?
Where does the self and in the horror horizon begin?
Why is it that we don't that we want to bring order to chaos?

Before she died
My mother said babies are more interesting than cats.
When I hugged Blackie grabbing my small comfort.
The cancer, she said, it came back.
But I didn't hear her and said angry things.
The following Wednesday her heart failed her. .
The truik years growing like small stones
—Maureen Hurley

Inverted pyramid transformation image dialog
Metaphor question dialogue
Image then story
Action exposition how to connect them together without changing it bring it all together


I forgot the urge to rewind time
I wanted to rewind time
I remember what she said, her eyes left to Stevie Wonder. Her ashes to the tide.
I left the box in the closet just like the way she had left me so many times before.

The horses listlessly lips at the hay
It was a season of continuous drought.
No time for tears
The phone rings in an empty room
The whispering of angel wings in the distance, plenty of time for rest
—Maureen Hurley


Don't allow the linear action for the first quarter of the page bring it home
Taking random randomness into meaning. Don't connect the first 6 to 7 lines let them stay there is a that gives the date pan to me like quality to the end of it. The image the moment hooks us into thereaders Louis Simpson don't write well, write truth.
Random into focused
It's not a gimmick it's a way of thinking about your thinking process
Process focus
Out of the unknown not your talent but accidents of your genius
Dawn, dusk, what does it matter, it's winter, the trees bear, the sun edging on the horizon
The roseate it done
Someone sandals
What reread
What we know to be the salmon and the cerulean ripples of Naples yellow, the sky and brooding clouds, the river on fire.

Oct 10, 2014, IONS Lots of mistakes, I was writing fast, then I dictated it. Lots more mistakes, and embedded poems which I need to lift out. And perhaps paraphrase all this, as a lot of it didn't make sense.

Voices of Gold: California Poets in the Schools Celebrates 50 Years of Poetry, Oct. 10-12 at IONS Earthrise in Petaluma

Poets, teachers, poet-teachers, and plebeians who want to become poets in the schools: join us October 10 -12, for our 50th Anniversary celebration, Voices of Gold Symposium at IONS in Petaluma. If you haven’t yet marked this on your calendar, do it now. Good job! Now, if you can't attend the whole the weekend, then come for Saturday's fabulous festivities. You'll get to spend the day or the entire weekend participating in innovative writing workshops and partying like rockstars with kindred poets, of course.

Did we mention that many California poets laureates, and civic poets laureates are/were CPITS poets—including Jane Hirshfield, Celia Woloch, Molly Fisk, John Oliver Simon, and our latest California Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, have gone on to win huge accolades? Yep. Poetry is us. Jane Hirshfield credits CPITS as that “superb and still thriving program” that gave her first job as poet teacher; she said CPITS instils in young writers a passion for poetry, allows freedom of mind and offers the open-ended “writing invitation.”



LA poet-actor-playwrignt Jack Grapes, publisher of ONTHEBUS, will lead a deep writing intensive on Friday, Oct. 10. His Method Writing Approach teaches us to listen deep within ourselves. Celebrate and honor the elders of CPITS with a banquet, and welcome newcomers with special festivities.



Saturday, Oct. 11 former California Poet Laureate and CPITS board member, Al Young will give a keynote address, followed by four sets of workshops that embrace themes of poetry & sound, poetry & visual art/media, poetry & movement, and poetry performance—we'll be joined by special guests, performance poet-activists Josh Healey and Jason Bayani.

California poet teachers—from San Diego to Del Norte—will lead ab-fab workshops. CPITS workshop leaders include Amanda Chiado, Phyllis Meshulam, Karen K Lewis, Claire Blotter, Tree Bernstein, Jim Cartwright, Karen Benke, Dan Zev Levinson, Julie Hochfield, Prartho Sereno, DanaTeen Lomax, Blake More, Margo Perin, Kathy Evans and Sally Doyle.

More cool workshops on Sunday morning, including poetry & yoga, poetry & art—and don't forget to leave extra time to say those long goodbyes with newfound friends.

WHERE: at IONS Earthrise Retreat Center in Petaluma—right off Hwy 101, at San Antonio Creek. The beautiful campus is nestled in the Northern California foothills. You will dine on sumptuous organic meals while engaging in a multitude of interactive poetry workshops that will enhance your own writing or teaching in the classroom.

Please visit https://www.cpits.org/events.htm for registration information and complete workshop descriptions or contact Tina@cpits.org, better yet, just call Tina 415-221-1401 to register. See you there!

At Jack Grapes' Place, LA

At Jack Grapes Place, LA

Outside the window
a woman in a car checks her watch,
fixes a button, clasps a book to her bosom,
checks her hair, sets the book down,
gets out of the car, picks up the book…

As I stare out between window and screen,
feeling like I'm in a Truffaut movie,
the camera pans away from the car
to my face, the lower half hidden from view,
as John plays Handel on the recorder.

* * *

At sunset in a strange city
in a strange  house,
Jack and Lori asleep.
I'm shaking twilight from my bones
while John turns on
the garbage disposal unit,
looking for light

* * *

From under his fingertips
notes from Handel slip out
so achingly pure in my ears.

* * *

Distant crackle of newspaper from the kitchen
the sound of a memory being disturbed.

11/21/1985

AT THE GENERAL MEETING OF POETS

Bill Bradd eats oranges and Oreos for breakfast
while Cindy Frank holds up a half moon of watermelon.
We are poets trying to fit into the guidelines.
Jack Grapes asks if all funding were eliminated
what would happen to us? What would survive us?
Mary Körte has the floor and presents laurels to John Simon.
Someone shouts think duck. Duck?
devorah major says, I’m not going to think duck.
I’m thinking 13 ducks. I have no idea what she means.
We talk about suicide, getting stuck in the old ways,
and what the children are writing. Why we do this.
Holocaust, abuse. Don’t carry the burden so far.
This is the renewal thing, the being with each other thing.
Don’t hurt people with guns. Do it with words.
The reality is that we are all poets.

CPITS meeting, Camp Cazadero, 1983? 84?