Interview with Belle Waring and Dawn Reno’s Online Creative Writing Class

(16:09) [KarenM] Is this working?
(16:10) [KarenM] Florida is only 68 degrees today; see you all later!
(17:46) [] yes this is woring
(18:35) [Wendy] hello
(18:38) [Dawn Reno] Hello Wendy -- You\!@#re early!
(18:39) [Wendy] Better than late!
(18:40) [Dawn Reno] So true. How are you doing? Have you read Belle’s interviews and her comments?
(18:41) [Wendy] I read her book.
(18:42) [Dawn Reno] It’s really interesting to also take a look at her interview and to see what kind of questions she asks about her own work.
(18:44) [Dawn Reno] Is Nickole here yet?
(18:44) [Wendy] Where?
(18:44) [Dawn Reno] With us in the chat room.
(18:45) [Wendy] No, I mean where do I go to read about her interviews?
(18:45) [Dawn Reno] Right here on the Sarabande site. Just click on her name -- like you did with Brian Griffin.
(18:47) [Wendy] Oh yeah. I read a lot about Brian before I asked questions. I did not do that this time.
(18:47) [Dawn Reno] Why not?
(18:48) [Holly] Hello everyone!
(18:49) [Wendy] I was worried about getting here on time. I have been working long hours as well. Would you like me to get check it now?
(18:49) [Wendy] hello Holly!
(18:50) [Dawn Reno] Hi Holly -- How are you?
(18:50) [Holly] Great. I’m eating taco dip!
(18:50) [Dawn Reno] Wendy -- I don’t know if you can get out of the chat to do it, but I think you might want to take a couple of minutes and try.
(18:51) * Belle kisses you all :*
(18:51) [Dawn Reno] Hi Belle--Nice to finally \"meet\" you. We have a mutual friend.
(18:51) [Belle] Oops. I hit the wrong icon. Hello, everyone.
(18:52) [Holly] So, I was really impressed with Ms. Waring’s writing
(18:52) [Dawn Reno] I liked the kisses better. ;-) Tony Whedon’s a good friend of mine. I understand you know him, as well.
(18:52) [Dawn Reno] You can tell her, Holly. She’s here.
(18:53) [] HI
(18:53) [Belle] Hi Nickole, how is the server doing? Hi Dawn, nice to talk with you again. Yes, I know Tony and his wife Suzanne. We were students at Vermont College back in the 80s
(18:54) [Dawn Reno] I lived in Montgomery Center, and Tony and I are very close. He speaks highly of you. This is my class that you’ll be talking with tonight.
(18:54) [Belle] Dawn, maybe you could tell me a little bit about your class. I understand it’s an independent workshop...
(18:54) [] hello
(18:55) [] HI
(18:55) [] HI
(18:55) [Dawn Reno] It’s an online creative writing class. I teach for a small community college in North Central Florida called Lake City Community College.
(18:55) [Wendy] I’m Back
(18:55) [Dawn Reno] Whoever just came in should go out and come back in again. Make sure you enter your names so we’ll know who you are when you speak.
(18:55) [] Hi it’s me
(18:56) [Nickole] Hello, everyone! Just doing a few last minute server check ups. . . looks like everything is fine!
(18:56) [] Help
(18:56) [Dawn Reno] Hi Nickole -- Glad to hear the server’s doing okay.
(18:56) [] ok
(18:57) [Belle] Also, Dawn, if you don’t see an entry posted from me for a few minutes, it’s probably because I got kicked out and will log back on shortly. How many students do you have? How is your class structured? Do you feel cutting edge or is the cyberschool just status quo? Oh, I see Nickole is here, hi Ms. B.
(18:57) [Becca] Hello?
(18:57) [Becca] Hello?
(18:58) [Holly] Hi Becca!
(18:58) [] hello Rebecca
(18:58) [Nickole] The person with the box and no name listed, you need to exit the chatroom and log back on using your name. If, however, you are not using the most recent version of AOL 5.0, this might not work for you. Just make sure to type in your name before each message.
(18:58) [Dawn Reno] I have 7 students. The class is structured for four genres. We did essays first, now they’re finishing short stories, and poetry is next. Cutting edge? I’m not sure about that . . . it seems we spend more time fixing computer problems than talking about writing . . .
(18:58) [Becca] Hi Holly!
(18:58) [] (PEARL) It’s me
(18:58) [Dawn Reno] Hi Becca.
(18:58) [Dawn Reno] Okay, Pearl, Becca, and Wendy are here. Anyone else?
(18:58) [] Nice to see you here
(18:59) [] Nice to see you here
(18:59) [] Becca, can you see my name posted
(18:59) [] Casey Carder
(18:59) [Becca] No, I can’t see your name, casey
(18:59) [Dawn Reno] Belle and Nickole are also here, so we should dive in. Last time we went alphabetically, so how about if we do that again. Casey, looks like you have the first question.
(19:00) [Nickole] Pearl, please read my message below.
(19:00) [] I guess that I wuill write it each time
(19:00) [Dawn Reno] Casey, you need to exit, then come back and make sure you sign in.
(19:00) [] Casey: As a poet myself, I have a hard time getting the poems started. How do you get started
(19:01) [] (Pearl) yes, I’m always having some kind of computer problem.
(19:01) [Belle] Do you mean how do I start a rough draft?
(19:02) [Dawn Reno] I’m going to sit back and just moderate. I will step in only to hand the questioning over to the next person. Okay?
(19:02) [] Casey: Yes, I can’t ever find inspiration
(19:02) [Dawn Reno] It’s all yours, Belle.
(19:04) [Belle] There are short term solutions: write when you are sleepy. Take a walk; walking is very effective, don’t ask me why, but Dante, Thomas Mann and Dickens were all great walkers. Don’t watch too much tv. It wrecks your ear. Listen to music. THen try to stay quiet and spend time alone so that you can focus, or meditate. One of the kids an eight year old I used to work with said: \"When you write a poem
(19:06) [Belle] Ran out of room. \"When you write a poem, it’s like your mind is talking to you.\" So I think you have to be willing to listen to your own mind. Sometimes when we are troubled or overworked or stressed we do not want to do this. So you have to be ready. Richard Hugo said that when a poem has problems, often the problems are not literary but psychological. You have to think what is important to you.
(19:06) [Nickole] Guys, Belle is well known for her long, thoughtful answers and is, in fact, the only author to request room for more than a four line response (something that we’re working on now)... Be patient. . . it’s worth the wait.
(19:08) [] (Pearl ) Did you really work as a nurse?And are your story’s all true?
(19:09) [Belle] Anyway, this touchy feely stuff is just a way to say that poems deal with emotion, and emotion is a lot of work sometimes. Really a lot of work. Because you have to say these primordial things in a new way, and this is difficult. Are you guys still with me?
(19:09) [Nickole] Next question?
(19:09) [Holly] So many people approach the idealistic fairytale of love with a white horse and prince, yet in your poem \"To Them, Their First Conversation\", you claim love as an everyday experience. Usually when it happens that way, it seems so common. Yet in that poem, love seems inspirational in an ordinary fashion. I think it is important to look at different aspects of \"ideas\" say love for instance. As a
(19:09) [] I do but then I just het frustrated when things don’t come to me quickly. I know that you can’t rush poetry but sometimes you get in a time crunch and you feeel that you have to rush it.
(19:10) [Belle] Yes, I was a nurse for about eighteen years. My stories are true, false, and somewhere in between. Some of them are composites.
(19:10) [Holly] I find that reaching beyond the fairytale and stepping into your own realm of what you percieve is what writing is all about.
(19:11) [Dawn Reno] Nice analogy, Holly.
(19:12) [Belle] Holly, that poem could not have been written without having read a lot of Chinese lyrics. If you look at how they focus on the moment and then find the image in nature to reflect their feelings...but wait. They see the natural world for what it is, and we ppl are just part of that. Nature both reflects us and contains us. It is hard to explain, but if you read David HInton’s translations of Tu Fu
(19:13) [Belle] Anyway, Back to the student who had trouble getting started quickly. Maybe you could work in form. A strict form sometimes forces you to produce a draft at least. Try blank verse at least. If nothing else it will give you a lot of respect for the Elizabethans, who could really crank it out.
(19:14) [Belle] Dawn, are they working in form at all? Is anybody interested in prosody?
(19:15) [Dawn Reno] Belle, they’re still working on their short stories. We’re heading into poetry (got sidetracked), so you’re the introduction to the subject.
(19:15) [] Yes, poetry is next
(19:15) [Dawn Reno] And, yes, they will be working in at least two forms -- they’ll choose which ones they want to explore.
(19:16) [] (Pearl) ’IT WAS MY FIRST NURSING JOB, I truly enjoyed this poem,it must have been hard on you when you told the dad. I could feel the pain of the poem.
(19:17) [Becca] Ms. Waring, Why do you choose to write poems rather than short stories, or even novels? Your poems are stories, right? Why not expand, add some punctuation, and tell the whole story?
(19:18) [Belle] Yes, this is the only nurse poem that happened just the way I wrote it. It was just a question of what to leave out. What I learned from that poem was that it was not enough to tell a horror story about a patient. I as the nurse was implicated. I do not like poems that just rip off other people’s pain.
(19:20) [Dawn Reno] Wendy, you have the floor now, then it’s Pearl’s turn.
(19:20) [Belle] Becca, this is a question I ask myself. I guess I got hooked on some devices that work better in poems that stories. I will post this and then list the devices in my next entry.
(19:20) [Wendy] You have included in many of your poems with emotional tension using curse words and specific facial expressions. Can you give any other suggestions with placing emotional tension in proper perspective?
(19:21) [Tiffeney] Sorry I’m late, but I’m here now
(19:22) [Dawn Reno] Tiffeney, you’ll have the floor after Pearl.
(19:22) [Belle] Becca, here they are: extreme compression; sound patternings (rhyme, rhythm); and, maybe most importantly, the kind of associational shift that comes in dreams. Dawn will explain this as you get into poetry. And last, the polyvalent image. The image that means more than one thing at a time. Of course you can do all this in fiction, but you don’t have to. In poetry, you get to mess around more.
(19:23) [] (Pearl) Did your cousin really die of AIDS? I have always heard that this is one of the most painfull ways of dieing.
(19:25) [Belle] Emotional tension: Try tough, terse rhythms. You hear this in, say, rap music. There’s a lot of despair in the staccato, punching rhythm. Also a lot of toughness and defiance. On the other side of the coin, you could read Shakespeare for full, rich, lyrical depth. And he’s always good for a laugh. But if you want emotional tension, read Othello.
(19:26) [Dawn Reno] Great suggestion, Belle. Othello is a wonderful example of all kinds of emotional tension. Tiffeney, the floor is yours.
(19:26) [Belle] Pearl: no, this story was invented. I have had friends who died of AIDS, however. But for some reason when I went to write about it, it just came out in a kind of persona. I have never met my third cousins. THe character just took over.
(19:29) [Belle] I think I should go back to something Becca asked me. I used to be a fiction writer when I was young. Now when I write poems, I naturally fictionalize. SOmetimes this disappoints people because they assume poetry is nothing but the truth. But this isn’t necessarily true. You can make stuff up. You can create characters, whether it’s a poem or a story. You are free to create anything you want.
(19:29) [Dawn Reno] Tiffeney?
(19:30) [Dawn Reno] Okay, if Tiffeney isn’t there, then the question goes to Casey.
(19:31) [Tiffeney] Tiffeney is here
(19:31) [] Ok, when you write, how do you judge how long your poems are or do you just let the poem take on a life of it’s own
(19:31) [Dawn Reno] Ask your question then, Tiff.
(19:32) [Tiffeney] Mrs. Waring I don’t know if you have been asked this or not already, but I would like to know how you get so deep into your meanings in your poems.
(19:32) [Belle] This is interesting because it depends on a lot of things. Let me post this and then I will list the things in the next entry.
(19:32) [Tiffeney] Mrs. Reno I’ve had bad computer problems, sorry
(19:34) [Dawn Reno] Talk to me about it later, Tiff.
(19:34) [Belle] 1. A poem should not be boring. Length is a factor. (2) It’s good to let the poem take on a life of its own, to overwrite, and then after a few drafts, you can start to cut back. It’s better to write too much than to write too little, because you can always cut, and it’s easier to cut than to generate new material. THen your only problem is to figure out how to end the poem.
(19:36) [] I don’t find it hard to find an ending but I do find it difficult to decide on length. I undestand that it is easier to cut then to add but it is always hard for me to decide what to cut.
(19:36) [] Casey: sorry, my name is not showing up.
(19:36) [Belle] Tiffeney asked how I get so deep into the meanings in the poems. THis is a flattering question because it means that you see what I am trying to do, which is to reflect some of the life and death situations I’ve seen; not only that, but how hard some people have to struggle. I was born in 1951 and I grew up with my grandparents, who taught me a lot. forget I am older than you guys. I was born in
(19:40) [Belle] THe question about length. Maybe it would help if you set yourself an arbitrary length. When I started out I would not write a poem more than one page long because I didn’t think any reader would stay with me for longer than that. Set yourself an arbitrary length, and that will tell you something. It will frustrate you perhaps, and that will tell you that the poem wants to go longer or shorter..
(19:40) [Tiffeney] So, its just your life situations that help you get so deep into your poetry?
(19:40) [Holly] Ms. Waring, one more question from me. Elizabeth Bowen once said that \"characters pre-exist\". Do yours? By that I mean, is there some of you, if not all of you, in each poem?
(19:41) [Dawn Reno] One at a time . . . Belle needs to answer Tiffeney first, Holly, then she’ll get to you. ;-)
(19:41) [Belle] Sorry, my answer to Tiffeney got garbled. I erased part of a sentence by accident. I meant to say that Don’t forget I am older than you guys, and when I was young we had to deal with the war in Vietnam and the riots and the whole world going crazy. I went out to work when I was seventeen and I saw a lot. FOrtunately I had a good role model in my grandfather, a country doctor. More on that later.
(19:43) [Dawn Reno] That was definitely an interesting period . . . my era too, Belle.
(19:44) [Belle] Holly, I am not sure what characters pre existing means. I think this is shorthand for some kind of creative process, but i am not sure. I suppose there is part of oneself in each poem, but again, this is a bit too vague to be helpful. The main thing to remember when you are starting out is: Put in more details than you think you need, and don’t be boring.
(19:46) [Becca] I have some problems with \"He Said Yes\": I don’t get the sequence nor I do I see what he said yes to... to suicide? Or did he propse something other than death to which the female said no? And what about the little girl at the end who learns the box-step form her old man, what is the significance?
(19:46) [Belle] Also, when you are starting out, you need to read a lot. Read stuff that is vivid and inspiring and that has meaning. Then ask yourself how the writer does it. Copy them. I mean literally write a parallel sentence: take their structure and plug in your own words. See how they do it.
(19:46) [Becca] I have some problems with \"He Said Yes\": I don’t get the sequence nor I do I see what he said yes to... to suicide? Or did he propse something other than death to which the female said no? And what about the little girl at the end who learns the box-step from her old man, what is the significance?
(19:47) [Belle] Becca, this is a poem about incest. Go and read it again and it will make sense.
(19:47) [Becca] I have some problems with \"He Said Yes\": I don’t get the sequence nor I do I see what he said yes to... to suicide? Or did he propse something other than death to which the female said no? And what about the little girl at the end who learns the box-step form her old man, what is the significance?
(19:47) [Dawn Reno] Holly, your turn.
(19:48) [Holly] What I meant by pre existing chara. is that some timesd your personality comes out in poetry - the good side and bad side. Does yours?
(19:49) [Belle] Yes, and this can be surprising. But as Robert Frost said, \"No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the writer.\"
(19:50) [] (Pearl) I’m not a person who likes to read poems but I truly enjoyed yours. I am going to school to be a Doctor so when I was reading your poems I could relate to them. Iliked them so much I couldn’t stop reading, so I read your whole book.
(19:50) [Belle] Oops. I meant to say, \"No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the READER.\"
(19:51) [Becca] I have some problems with \"He Said Yes\": the sequence and what does he say yes to? Suicice? Does he propse somehting besides suidce to which the female says yes to before saying no to killing herself? And what about the little girl learning the box-step from her old man... what is the significance?
(19:51) [Holly] I was wondering... :)
(19:51) [Dawn Reno] I rather liked thinking of no surprise for the WRITER. We all need to be surprised by our own work. Okay, five minutes left, people. Who wants the last question?
(19:51) [Wendy] I am a Nurse Supervisor/MDS coordinator. I too enjoyed the poem concerning anouncing a death. It is one of the most difficult parts of my job. I can relate to many of your poems on a personal level. Do you generally pull your detailed moments in time from experience? They are well written and made to seem so real.
(19:52) [Tiffeney] I do
(19:52) [Belle] Hey, Pearl, thanks a lot. One thing I struggle with is: Who is my audience? Do I want to write only for people who have masters degrees in English literature? Do I want to write for other nurses, who tend not to have much time to read?
(19:53) [Tiffeney] Mrs. Waring, why did you name your book Dark Blonde, does it have anything to do with any of the poems or not?
(19:54) [] (Pearl) Thanks alot for the chat and I hope to read more of your work!
(19:54) [] Guys, we have about five minutes left of this chat. Are there any last comments you have for Belle?
(19:55) [Belle] Hi Wendy. I could not write those nurse poems until I had been out of nsg for two years. Then the details just came back to me as if suddenly unfrozen. But I am not bound by experience. Again, I make stuff up. But as a nurse, you are not hampered by a lack of stimuli. Usually, you see TOO much. You have to block. THen to write a poem, I had to unblock, soften up. It was not easy.
(19:55) [Holly] I have to go. Fried turkey and deer meat is calling me. Mrs. Waring, it has been a pleasure and I enjoyed reading your book of poems. Good luck on your future writings. Goodnight everyone.
(19:55) [Dawn Reno] Belle, thanks for the thoughtful comments and for taking the time to meet with my class. I’m sure they will all want to take into consideration some of the ideas you offered.
(19:55) [Becca] \"He Said Yes\"... I have some problems with this one... what does he say yes to? Suidice? Does he propose something to which the female says yes before committing suicide?
(19:55) [Belle] Dark BLonde is an oxymoron. It is found in \"Shots.\" It means I’m blonde but not whitebread.
(19:56) [Belle] Dawn, it was a pleasure. Hope you talk to again. Let me know if you come up to DC.
(19:57) [Dawn Reno] I’ll put you on my list for next semester -- and will let you know if I get to D.C. I ’l be calling Tony soon and will tell him we finally \"met.\" Thanks again.
(19:57) [Becca] Thanks for being so informative and REALLY answering our questions.
(19:57) [Tiffeney] Mrs Waring why did you name your book the way you did when you don’t have a poem called that?
(19:57) [] Thanks, everyone! I will be sending you a transcript of the chat soon.
(19:57) [Wendy] yes, thanks!
(19:57) [] beeca, I don’t think that you are going to get your question answered
(19:57) [Dawn Reno] Thanks, Nickole. I ’l talk to all of you online sometime this week. Perhaps we can continue this discussion on our own discussion board. Good night.
(19:58) [Tiffeney] Thank you Mrs. Waring!
(19:58) [Belle] Just remember, poetry is a process, an ancient process, and it runs deep. Don ’t get frustrated if you don ’t get it in one semester. .
(19:58) [Becca] Thanks for being so informative and REALLY answering our questions.
(19:59) [Tiffeney] Pearl did you get my story?
(19:59) [] (Nickole) Thanks, Belle!
(19:59) [Belle] Are we done? Thanks, everyone.
(19:59) [Tiffeney] I sent your story back to you.
(20:00) [] ok thnk youall and I am sure that I will be seeing you all very soon
(20:01) [] (Nickole) Yes. . . we ’re all done! Good night, all.
(20:02) [Belle] Good night, and Nickole, thanks again.