19 March 2009

This workshop is now CLOSED. Please leave some feedback for the eleven entries for this workshop, and in the meanwhile ^fllnthblnk will be reading as well!

There's An Art To It by =use-the-force
Morning Ritual by *RickDanger
Ship of Fools by ~RevMEATZ
The Dreams In Which I'm Dying by *orphicfiddler
The Cry of the Wolf by ~Link8522
Long Distance Relationship by ~Kitz-the-Kitsune
One Dozen v_03 by *GrimEden
The Dream of the Attendant Ant by ~Elmara
Flight of Heaven by ~Darn-Im-Frustrated
Lewisville by `BerylAlexandros
beachy keen by =AstarteKatz

18 March 2009

Friendly reminder, there's about 16 hours until this workshop ends. Please note us your entries if you haven't already!

14 March 2009

Friendly reminder, this workshop ends on Wednesday. We'd like to see a few more entries come in before the deadline, so get to it!

8 March 2009


^fllnthblnk, aka William Soule, is a Filipino-American poet from northern Utah. He reads a lot of poetry, both published and unpublished, both contemporary and old-school, and has poems published in Read This Magazine, elimae, Tattoo Highway, and Alba, among others. The poems he enjoys best are the ones you can understand. He also has a penchant for cookies.

AUTHENTICITY: It's All In The Details

One of the biggest hurdles a poet could face: how to make a poem genuine. Avid readers of poetry have probably stumbled upon many poems written by young poets that are too alike--identical twins you couldn't tell apart til they explained to you who was who, that Tim's the one with the small scar under his eye when, as a toddler, he found the kitchen shears and that Jim has the slightly bent nose from that biking accident last year. To make your poems genuine, to separate your poems from everyone else's, it is important to put these sort of details into the poems themselves instead of waiting for someone to ask for an explanation. Of course, not all poems need detail to be genuine or good, but for your typical poem, detail is crucial to stand out.

Let's take a look at a poem written by Kim Addonizio entitled "What Do Women Want?" It's about a dress the poet wants to wear, but it doesn't simply describe the dress. What makes this poem so genuine is when Kim introduces "Thriftys and the hardware store" and "Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old / donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers / slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly."

Introducing specific people and their occupations makes this poem authentic--who would've thought about including pigs being slung from the truck by the Guerra brothers when talking about a dress? It's these sort of details that'll make poems really hold their own, convincing the reader that the poet isn't just making things up (even if they really are).

But we shouldn't just include a landfill of description to make a poem authentic: simply describing something a reader could easily imagine won't do the trick. It's best to include something specific that would surprise a reader. For instance, Ellen Bass, in her poem "Don't Expect Applause", describes an ordinary day and how it would be nice to be applauded for getting through it. At the end of the poem, she describes certain bad things we could've done to render us undeserving of applause: "Would a round of applause be amiss? / Even if you weren't good. / If you yelled at your kid, / poisoned the ants, drank too much / and said that really stupid thing."

Look how she sneaks in something you probably wouldn't normally think of as wrong ("poisoned the ants") in between typical things ("If you yelled at your kid" and "drank too much"). It's surprising little things like these that can greatly enhance a poem.

Here is one last example: "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July" by Billy Collins.

Towards the end of the poem, we wind up in a museum with the poet. To convince the readers that he was really there, he describes one of the paintings: "under a blue cloud-ruffled sky, / dense trees along the banks, / and a fellow with a red bandanna // sitting in a small, green / flat-bottom boat / holding the thin whip of a pole." It's easy to describe any nature-type painting by including the sky and trees along a bank, but getting even more specific by describing a boater "with a red bandanna" is something that surprises the reader.

Your task: Write a poem that utilizes details to authenticate the poem, that make it sound genuine. Try to include specific details to surprise the reader; don't only stick with typical things the average reader can normally fill in with their imagination. Try to catch them a little off guard!

How to Submit

After submitting your entry as a new deviation or scrap, send us a note with a link to your piece. Include the subject line "DETAILS" in your note. The deadline is midnight 18 March 2009. All times are set for GMT. ^fllnthblnk will respond to the entries on 22 March.

A note from *Writers-Workshop: Please note that this is a POETRY workshop, meaning that we will accept ONLY poetry entries. Proofread your work before you send it in so that grammatical and spelling errors are minimal. And most of all have fun with it!

On Accepting Critique

Always thank the critic. This gratitude must be as sincere as possible, even if you did not like the critique given, because the critic has taken time to offer his/her opinion of the piece.
If you do not like the critique, it is not necessary to mention so. Simply thank the critic and move on. You can always ignore their suggestions, while not making a scene of it.
If you are unsure of what the critique means, feel free to ask the critic what s/he meant. Building rapport with your critic is one of the best ways to survive in a workshop and to learn. If you want examples, ask. Similarly, if you like the suggestions given, mention it. Critics have feelings too.
In the unlikely case that a critic offers rude/sexist/racist/etc comments, feel free to contact *Writers-Workshop in a note and we will try to help you. A decision regarding the rudeness of the critique will be taken, and if we're not sure ourselves, we will consult with one of the GDs or anyone else high up on deviantART.

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