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FOTR Weekly: Pandemic Poetry: Biting Hard Crackers with Carol Barrett, and more

Kellie Rankey

“Along the sea-wall, a steady sloshing of the swell,

The waves not yet high, but even,

Coming closer and closer upon each other;

A fine fume of rain driving in from the sea,

Riddling the sand, like a wide spray of buckshot,

The wind from the sea and the wind from the mountain contending,

Flicking the foam from the whitecaps straight upward into the darkness.”

– Theodore Roethke, “The Storm”

In last week’s speaker event Jennifer Clement talked about her interest in Theodore Roethke, noting that she is “struck by his introspection,” and called out his poem, “The Storm,” as one of her favorites. Talking directly about the poem, she said that she loves “its music and the way you can hear the water in it.” This week’s poem excerpt comes from the second section of “The Storm,” which you can read in full here. 

Our virtual speaker series will be taking a brief pause until mid-April while we host the fourth of our six poetry workshops. Read on to find out more about what’s coming up.

Upcoming this Week

Poetry Workshop on March 29:Pandemic Poetry: Biting Hard Crackers

with Carol Barrett

After two years in the pandemic, we’ve all got something to say about it. From small joys and regenerative breaks from the day-to-day, to total disruptions of normalcy, debilitating challenges, and personal losses, the pandemic has touched all of our lives. Join facilitator Carol Barrett on a journey of healing and self-expression in this workshop, where you’ll be invited to process your experience with the pandemic and its multifaceted impacts on your world. With Barrett’s experience in interdisciplinary studies and her dual-doctorates in Creative Writing and Clinical Psychology, her workshop is sure to be a site of constructive exchange and creativity.

The workshop is currently sold out, but you can check here in case seats open up and to be added to the waiting list.  The workshop will be held via Zoom at 7pm on March 29.

If you’re thinking of participating in any of our poetry workshops, seats are going fast! We’ve got two more workshops left for you to participate in. For more information about the poetry workshops, click here.

Looking Ahead

Poetry Workshop on April 5:Not Missing the Moment: The Ten-Line Poem in the Time of Crisis

with Anita Skeen

When all the conflicts and crises in our lives swarm our minds, we can get lost in the muck of it. Writing constraints, such as a limit of ten lines, can help us to process our feelings and reactions by forcing our minds to operate in a compressed space. We are able to pause our anxious wandering in these small spaces, and are empowered to proceed toward realizations and revelations that may lead us to a comfort in closure. As Skeen writes in the event description, good things persist amidst darkness: 

“We have time, if we take it, to notice the small things we would have missed in the normal fast pace of our frantic pre-pandemic lives.  There are treasures around us we have left undiscovered.  There are small moments of joy that are more important now than they were.”

Join poet and seasoned workshop facilitator Anita Skeen on Zoom for an exploration of working in and healing through the compressed form of the ten-line poem. This is a moment you won’t want to miss!

Poetry Workshop on April 12:Defining Moments: Narrative and Image in the Emotional Shift Poem

with Carol Barrett

Contrary to popular opinion, narrative is not a craft element exclusive to the novel or short fiction; poets can use it too! We have all experienced moments in our lives that mark an enduring change and have a resonant, symbolic significance to us, and those moments are valuable starting points for poetry. Through narrative and image, the emotional shift poem locates and highlights how our lived experiences have affected us, allowing us the space to process those moments with greater patience and clarity.

Join Carol Barrett, a poet and seasoned workshop facilitator, to learn more about how to work the defining moments of your life into poetry. We hope to see you there!

IF YOU CAN’T GET INTO A WORKSHOP: Please email chapbook@friendsofroethke.org and let us know which one you’re interested in. We’ll put you on a waiting list. We’re also working on a way to let you all contribute to the poetry anthology and celebrate with us at the book launch. We’ll provide details as this comes into focus, but the first step is to reach out via email and let us know you’re interested.

Special Thanks & Additional Info

Thank you to Jennifer Clement and Dr. Suzanne Mallouk for your open and honest conversation about the creative life and both of your histories as writers and artists. Your conversation with each other as well as your generous open Q&A segment provided us with an enriching exploration of the Health and Wellness theme. Words are almost incapable of expressing the full scope of our gratitude. We all felt time slow down while you spoke – perhaps we all even entered into a pocket of that creative “kairos time” – and we are honored to have shared space with you. 

Once again, Moderator Carol Barrett summed it up well when she said,

“I feel like we are in the presence of enormous courage. When I hear your stories and your life stories, and also your art and your commitment to art, whether visual or the art of writing, I have a strong sense of an enormous passion.”

Thank you for sharing your passion and time with us last week, and we hope the best for your art in the years to come. Thanks also go out to all who attended the speaker event with Jennifer Clement and Dr. Suzanne Mallouk – we hope you feel similarly enlightened and inspired by the experience!

We are also grateful for your continued interest in our virtual poetry writing workshops. For our workshop participants, stay tuned for more information about May events: day trips to the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center, a bookbinding workshop at SVSU in May, and a book launch celebration at the Roethke House. We hope that you’ll share the poems you’ve created in these workshops with us for publication in the Saginaw Chapbook Project, and we can’t wait to share your words with the community!

Thanks to generous support from Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Arts Midwest, Ohio Arts Council, and National Endowment for the Arts, our events are free and open to the public through May 31, 2022.

Kellie Rankey holds a BA in Creative Writing from SVSU, where they currently remain a student. Their work has appeared inThe Normal School,Tiny Molecules, and theMichigan Sociological Review, and is forthcoming from Wrongdoing Magazine.