Work from previous sessions
These are the unedited results of writing excercises done by members of past writing retreats.
Andrew
I'M TRANSLATING THIS FROM A GIANT RED BERRY AT MY BACK
What a weird place for a berry. This motion sickness gets meadows, the costume colors. Not on, as in developed, but at, as in touching lightly. Behind the pairing a seamless structure grows from the sand as if speechless, a normal-seeming playland, and it isn't well. What does the word mean in another country, a far-off address, and in two places at once yet. Corners corruptedly obtuse, not right.
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GET THE PEANUTS
bright lights go further down
scratching all you have around this table
assuming immaculate
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Chris
Bonehead, Sit Here
Bonehead hides under the tablecloth.
Bonehead hides his boots in a drawer.
The one simple truth of being a bonehead:
You don’t want to be a bonehead no more.
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Rinse With Water to Remove
Rinse with water to remove
The taste of pessimism
Germs that cause used car clerks
Pocket protector ink
Sticky hand shampoo
Rinse with water to remove
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Jay
Writing in the dark exercise
Bumble bees are blessed beings
because they bumble but do not babble, only buzz
Buzz Aldron is my favorite astronaut
because of his name: Buzz
(Did you think I would say Aldron? I did.)
Buzbie Bigbie wasn’t that that the name of someone
in a musical, or a novel?
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First line exercise
Stop thinking me about any of this
Stop thinking me the pinecone sticks
look like male genitalia
Stop thinking the lichen
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Laurel
Untitled
“Mr. Edwards carried on his business of whoremaster in an orderly and unemotional way.” When it came to payment, he asked that the money be slipped under his office door. There was no worry of a wife wondering at it. She’d left with his sons for any other place.
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Lisa
Woman
Touching her own breasts, braced against the abandoned railcar, unknowing and uncaring of who entered and who withdrew.
Grimace held, breath held, charms long withheld and everything given.
When I Had No Roof
When I had no roof I made
A house of matchsticks, gumdrops, roofs of lambsbread and chairs of acorns.
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Michelle
WRITING IN THE DARK
It's June, and I am wearing a sweatshirt—weather is so confusing to me now. My mind always reaching for a tangible home between the East and San Francisco, the word home so used and meaningless.
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IDENTITY
If I don't have a strong identity myself, no one will identify with me. If I have a strong identity myself, someone else will identify with me. If someone identifies with me, I will have a strong identity. If myself identifies with me, I will have a strong identity. If my identity is strong, I will identify with myself. If my identity identifies with myself, I will be strong.