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notes on
a writers workshop
by Donna I. (1972)
(Editors Note: In 1971, the staff of Black Maria magazine,
a literary journal with roots in the CWLU, ran a writer's workshop
as part of
the CWLU's Liberation School. This article, published in the December
1971 issue of Black Maria, is a report on that workshop)
"Poetry
ought to have a mother as well as a father." - Virginia Woolf Woolf
All writing is a social act (even diaries, I suspect), and systems
for expressing sounds, words, and ideas have distinguished human societies
for thousands of years. Unfortunately, knowledge of the written language
has been preciously guarded, more often than not, by an elite group
of priests, scribes, aristocrats, or scholars. Even "universal
education" has not eliminated the old mystique, so that most people
approach our written language with as much awe as they would Egyptian
hieroglyphics.
Writing, like any attempt to communicate, is also a risk. Our thoughts
will make contact in ways which we cannot control. Perhaps some will
not understand, and ridicule what we say. Perhaps others will be grateful
that we have expressed feelings and ideas which they have never been
able to articulate. Whether praised, blamed, or simply ignored, once
words are in print, they no longer belong only to the writer, but take
on a life of their own.
Despite the risk and common fear, hundreds of "ordinary" women
have come forward, through the support of their sisters, to express
their dreams as well as their terrors; to dig up herstory; to argue;
to analyze; to invent; to sing. In short, to startle and overturn the
old notions of emptyhead, chatterbox, harpy, gossip, and bitch.
The most astonishing thing about this great burst of creativity is
that most of the writers are "amateurs." Women are discovering
that they are not non-verbal, not illogical, not too emotional and
ignorant to finish a thought. We are learning that writing can be an
end in itself, for it often helps us clarify our thoughts into ideas
and organize our ideas into a point of view; or through word images
and rhythm, we may transform perceptions and impressions into beautiful
poetry or songs. And that once these are set down in print, we enjoy
an invisible communication with many people, beyond the circle of our
daily lives.
As we grow in skill and confidence, shall we imitate masculine styles,
forms, themes in our writing? Or shall we assert that part of woman
which is still to be expressed, still to be explored? Take war, for
example, which has often been portrayed in literature but rarely
through a woman's eyes. The deadly game has been only partially revealed
through images of grenades, guns, tanks, terror, explosion, mutilation,
for the struggle to sustain families, production, and hope on the "home
front" is an equally fierce battle against death. The futility,
the absurdity of war is called "armed conflict." How would
women--who must continue to build while governments use their sons,
lovers, brothers to destroy--define it?
Then there is sex. Eroticism in literature has been so dominated
by male writers that many women feel malformed, neurotic, impure
because
their experience nowhere resembles man's arrogant portrayal of it.
Art reinforced traditional morality in cutting women off from their
own bodies, but it certainly did not reflect reality. Now that we know
female sexuality to be potentially deeper, richer, more intense, more
demanding than the male's, let's bury the old empty-cup-waiting-to-be-filled,
dull half-waiting-to-be-made-whole nonsense once and for all. Let the
nature of female sexual experience no longer be taboo but a rich and
various subject to stir the imagination of women artists.
Examples multiply. Novels, stories, poems, abound in female characters
waiting to scratch each other's eyes out at the drop of a hat (or the
sudden appearance of a male.) Quickly now, name one example from literature
in which two women are allowed to be real friends. Warmth, affection,
understanding are as vital as air, food, or water; none of us could
have survived without having known strong and enduring bonds among
our own sex. Sheer terror must have inspired male writers to so distort
the reality of woman-to-woman relationships. Novelist Anais Nin has
written: "There is no mockery between women. One lies down at
peace as at one's own breast." If this is true--and I believe
it often is--the portrait of woman's humanity to woman will profoundly
enrich not only art but life now and in the future.
Turn this time to written history, some of the world's most audacious
fiction. Judging from it,our sex hardly existed these thousands of
years. But what of Mercy Warren, Maud Nathan, Abigail Adams,
Aesara of Lucania, Cassandra, Agrippina III Arete of
Cyrene, Cleopatra, Clothilde of the Merovingians, Diotima, the Wife
of Bath, Alexandra Kollantai, Hypatia, Emma Willard, Emily James Putnam,
the warrior Varangians, Charlotte Corday, Louisa May Alcott, Aphra
Behn, Madame Curie, Rosa Luxembourg, Emily Dickenson,
Eve, Judith, Vera Zasulich, Lucretia Mott, Yosana
Akiko, Clara Lemlich, Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, Mary
Dreier, Mary Emerson, Lucy Parsons, Anne Hutchinson,
the Grimkes, Voltarine de Cleyre, Louise Michel, to
name only a few? our story is proud, fascinating,
and long overdue for telling.
Having touched briefly on what women might
choose to write, let's return to Woolf's belief that
poetry should have a mother as well as a father. What
did she mean by that simple but puzzling phrase? We
know and could cite evidence of society's attempt to
straitjacket woman's mind. But that does not mean
that the real, the essential, did not struggle a
gainst what was imposed. The mother, the sister, the
girlfriend, the wife does not look out on life only
through the blinders of her role. In those private
moments when the blinders are not on--what and how
does she see? what does she know? It is not that women should write
like women, but that expressing our
unique vision will -expand, add new dimensions to a
language which men now own:
man n... at the highest level of animal development, mainly
characterized by his exceptional mentality.
woman n...the female being(distinguished from man).
or
reason n ... the mental powers concerned with drawing conclusions
or inferences.
intuition n ... direct perception of truths, facts, etc.
independently of any reasoning process.
These key definitions are clearly biased, certainly inaccurate. Woman
is called any being that is non-man, and the form of knowledge proverbially
associated
with her sounds more like a physical than
a "mental power". From these "definitions" and the
many more there is no room to quote, it becomes obvious that the language
we grew up with is not enough; ordinary words and meanings must be transformed,
discarded, or reoriented as women begin to speak their own piece. A whole
new
range of sounds, rhythms, shadings, accents, images will accompany woman's
voice; and we shall invent brand new forms to express what we have felt
and believed, what we see and need and plan to do:
For women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by
this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which
has, indeed,
so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness
itself
to pens and brushes and business and politics. But this creative power
differs
greatly from the creative power of men.
--Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own
With some of these ideas consciously or unconsciously in mind, the
Black Maria Collective set up an eight-week Writer's Workshop, which
was offered
to Chicago-area
women through the Liberation School of the Chicago Women's Liberation
Union. Through our efforts to scout up articles for the magazine, we
discovered
that many women whose experiences, work, or interests might have produced
fascinating
and valuable articles were not writing. Those we contacted generally
pleaded a lack of time. But when we looked into ourselves and asked
why we weren't
writing either, we guessed that lack of discipline, and more importantly,
lack of self-confidence were probably the biggest stumbling blocks
for "non-professional" but
potential women writers.
We started out on the theory that all women have
something to say, but that their talent is buried
under many layers of conditioning. If all went well,
we hoped a writer's workshop would fill three related,
vital needs. First among these is a warm and supportive atmosphere
where the creativity of all workshoppers would be stimulated and encouraged.
Second,
because writing in total isolation is often a dead
end street, the group would offer the kind of constructive feedback--criticism,
praise, suggestions-
which is so much a part of any healthy work-in-progress. Third, we
hoped that discussing already published writings of the Women's Movement,
from a stylistic rather than purely political
point
of view, would
sharpen our understanding of what makes good writing good, bad writing
bad, and suggest the variety of approaches possible (book reviews,
reporting, polemic, collective writing, historical and biographical
sketch, etc.)
Finally,
our
practical goal was for every workshopper to complete a piece of writing
on her own time.
Although we had planned mostly for discussions,
six out of the eight meetings included in-class exercises. Generally
very brief (15 to 20 minutes),
these writing sessions ended with us reading aloud
and commenting on what we had just written. Since
the convenors hadn't foreseen the necessity for writing during our
meetings and hadn't thought through a
variety of techniques, most of these exercises were
limited to writing movie reviews, critiques, etc. Yet
it is a measure of women's real hunger to express
themselves that most of the workshoppers found the
very act of writing a anything a rewarding experience.
Two high spots of the workshop were our first and last meetings,
during which we wrote to music and art. Photos, posters, paintings
were pinned
up around
the room and music by Ramsey Lewis, Smetana, the Beatles, Eric Satie,
Moussorgsky was played on the phonograph for 45 minutes. Everybody
was asked simply
to write and the results were spectacular.
We had come together in a small room, wellstocked with old, but familiar-looking
chairs, sofas, small tables. During the "experiment" some of us stayed
at the meeting table; others curled up in corner chairs; I was most at ease
stretched out on the floor. This freedom of movement reinforced the attempt
to liberate our imaginations. At the same time the well-worn look of the room,
it's space limits, provided a sense of intimacy among the strangers gathered
there.
The 45 minutes up, we came back together around the meeting table
to share what we had just written. Real enthusiasm and warmth sprung
up
in the group,
although most of us experienced a few moments of real terror as our
turn to share came around. Some of us had given in completely to the
experiment-situation;
some resented it. But we all had written, and written hard. One woman
had vividly
recreated her young son's joy in what the world feels, smells, and
tastes like. Another had written a poem about rhythm. Another had let
her imagination lovingly follow a wooded path portrayed in one of the
posters displayed in the room. The music had unlatched
the door
to an
interior world of colors, sights, and sounds which daily life and socialization
stiffly and deny.
Almost immediately it became evident that our workshoppers were at
different stages of writing development. Though painfully aware, we
acted pretty
helpless when people's different needs were sometimes at odds. At one
early session
someone had brought her writing for discussion, but was too timid or
too intimidated by our "schedule" to say anything. It must have seemed to her that
we piddled the evening away in writing exercises and film viewing, while she
had some real, live work in her pocket all the time. Yet others needed the
exercises simply because it "forced" their pens to paper and gave
them a healthy feeling of productivity.
Unfortunately the convenors had not prepared for the natural split
which existed within the group: those who were already writing and
wanted feedback
on their
work, and those who believed they couldn't write, didn't have anything
to say, or didn't know how to say it and wanted practice. The "alreadys" generally
had to give way to the "not yets," which meant it took us four or
five weeks to get around to one woman's article simply because we always ran
out of time. Ideally, both convenors and workshoppers could have dreamed up
many more games and experiments (similar to the music-exercise) for those who
needed to work up their writing courage, while those seeking criticism and
comments could have spent their time in valuable discussion.
Fortunately, anyone who was working on a writing project did get
the benefit of the group's (or part of the group's) comments sooner
or
later. But surprisingly,
we were often more shy about giving criticism than receiving it. one
night several poems were passed around, read, and then a deadly pall
fell over
the group. Who'll be first to speak? What do I say? What do these mean?
How will
she feel? our poet waited. Finally a couple of people cleared their
throats and ventured a sentence or two. Did the poet interpret our
silence as
disapproval--or worse-indifference?
When we talked a little about this failure, it became clear that
people wanted very much to respond.
Unfortunately most of us seemed to feel incapable, inadequate, unsure,
tongue-tied. For some, giving "constructive criticism" was a brand-new experience,
and it is likely that many genuinely did not know what was expected of them.
Just talking about it seemed to produce a painful, embarrassed tension.
For others who may try to set up workshops similar to ours, the same
problem may come up again. Perhaps some time could be spent at one
of the first
sessions talking about what can be gained from criticism, the kind
of comments we
look for or have been most helpful to us in the past, and emphasizing
that questions
are sometimes the most helpful of all. (I now wonder what would have
happened on the night of the "silent treatment" if someone had been frank
enough to admit they didn't understand. It would surely have broken the ice.)
Even more important, making sure that everyone who will be involved in the
discussion has a copy of the written work at least a week in advance might
go a long way toward avoiding the confused emotions of doubt and fear which
spoiled one or two of our criticism sessions.
There have been writer's workshops before, but what distinguished
ours was the belief that an woman who wanted to write could. She had
only
to believe
in herself first:
The sincerity and friendliness of the group has facilitated an atmosphere
of helpful criticism which improves each member's writing skills. (A.S.)
I think we are at least to the point where each woman feels capable
of writing something. This is a big step, given the pre-conditioning
we
had all been
subjected to. Another accomplishment (which, together with the first,
just about breaks
the field right open) is the willingness we developed to share our
writing with others and to accept criticism. (K.R.)
A larger understanding has been evolving-
that the participants can write and do
have exciting material to write about. It seemed as though every woman had an "I'm
not sure I can do it" feeling that first
evening. There have been less apologies
as time passed one. (K.N.)
I personally benefitted from the "exercises" we did in
class ... because the experience made me feel like tackling other
projects. I _always
went home feeling especially good on those nights-_ full of words
and ideas. (D.I.)
(from evaluations written by workshopppers.)
In the case of our workshop, women's energies were directed toward
the obstacles that keep us from writing. However, the real victory
was not
so much words
put down on paper but that we got back in touch with our imaginations.
objective analysis is necessary, but developing solutions to the
misery, rigidity,
and isolation of American life will take every ounce of creativity
we can all muster.
Few of us suspect how much of what we will need for the struggle
ahead we already possess. But why take my word for it? Remember
your daydreams
and
nightdreams.
Listen, for a moment, to yourself.
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