The 23rd of October saw The Bolo Tie Collective’s first Poetry Workshop of the semester. It turned out to be a lot of fun. There was an extremely high participation factor that brought some pretty amazing results.

As it was the first workshop we had no poems put forward to workshop so we wrote one. But not in a conventional manner. First of all it was a communal effort but with individual input. We started by having everyone volunteer random lines. There were some very good lines, but as you can imagine, they were in no way congruent with one another. We took those lines and built a rough outline of a poem. We found a common element in them and decided on a direction the poem would take. After some tweaking, but keeping the original intent of the lines intact, we had a very good start.

We next went to volunteering random words. We got words like pickled, chicken, etc. Our goal with these was to flesh out the rest of the poem. We did it. After we did it, we work-shopped the heck out of it.

It was eye-opening to witness the lights come on when someone had an idea. It was also gratifying to watch it come together as a group effort. And it also granted some educational input by showing us how words, at first not seeming related, can be worked into a purposeful use. I believe this knowledge is valuable for any form of writing undertaken and that it is good to revisit it to keep it in the toolbox.

So the next Poetry Workshop is November 20th. Hope to see you there.

Here is the poem created at the last meet. Enjoy.

Never Knowing
Collective writing by Kevin Styba-Nelson, Theodora MacLeod, Jordana Spak, Cam Winters

She groans – childbirth beginning –
Pushing like a Gazelle.

Like cars down a one-way street
Lights streaming by
In pain staring up
Squeak from the wheels
Most annoying sound ever
One night of carnal lust
Turned hours of pain

Eyes reviving a childhood pain
Contacting across the years
Alone at a middle school dance
He’s back for seconds
Sparkling smile; bone dry wit

A twitch in her heart comes alive
From the corner of her eye
A laugh, a drink, a cab home
Drunken libidos, stumbling blind
Loving: sunset to sunrise

Head to head,
Affections play chicken
Bubbles of desire, bursts of shame
Pushing buttons seeing how far would they go
Hearts so bitter they were pickled

Can time roll back
Five years removed
Lifetimes apart together
Standing alone
At a middle school dance