Social writing pt 1: Poetry Camp! And bonds for better writing
Flashback from 43 to 13
Apologies for the radio silence—but I’m back now! And on to ‘social writing’, a theme I’d like to explore [even] more over the next few newsletters.
One of my first writing experiences I remember was Poetry Camp. At Canisius College, right near where I lived in Buffalo, NY, some people ran a camp for kids where they wrote and talked poetry together. I don’t know who organised the camp or why, just that somehow my parents found it and signed me up. Not sure when my first year was either—but the year I remember most I must have been about 13, maybe 14, so thirty years ago now.
As a camp it was so simple, so successful! What I remember most is sitting around outside on the grass in the warm shade under the trees writing poetry, and then sitting around on benches in a circle discussing our poetry. The older guy who led our group was kind and funny and I can’t remember that he taught us anything technical about poetry, but he taught us something much more enduring and valuable: how to feel about writing poetry—to love it, to enjoy the process, to not take poetry or ourselves too seriously, to just make some art and share it. That’s it!
We did have a final anthology of poetry but the goal was not publication of your poem. The goal was writing while spending time together and spending time together while writing.
Poetry Camp’s goal was forming bonds around something joyful and experimental and expressive without judgment or evaluation.
Such a large part of the point of healthier working habits for writers/researchers is not just about tricks for writing more, but tricks for healing your relationship with writing in the first place.
I think Poetry Camp really gets it right: sometimes we just need good company to get back a good bond with our own writing. I’ve written before about writing retreats/sessions needing some crucial ingredients like freedom from interruption and peaceful surroundings. Another element might be reshaping our relationship to writing as one of enjoyment and love—even if the writing in itself is still hard—through positive bonds with fellow writers.
Whether we’re trying to fit in writing between teaching or kids or another job, what we once loved can come to feel frustrating, burdensome, overwhelming. The very real pressure of publication can be stressful. Sometimes we can write through that and come out on the other side. Other times it’s very difficult to release ourselves from both the external and internal judgment about writing that blocks us from doing anything at all.
But when we talk about our writing with others—doesn’t have to be substantial, maybe just articulating what we want to accomplish and admitting its challenges—and they respond not with judgment but with unequivocal support, that models for us how to respond to our own writing. We should be unequivocally supporting ourselves. That authentic positivity suddenly casts a whole new light on a way forward that only recently seemed murky and foreboding.
The human on the other side of that supportive social bond doesn’t have to provide concrete solutions to technical problems—maybe that wouldn’t even help at that moment—but just get us feeling like we have permission to play and experiment to try to find those solutions ourselves.
Mirroring is the idea that your body and mind are better able to focus, for example, when you sit across from somebody modelling that focus. Mirroring can also be emotional, where the positive relation experienced outwardly with another person can be reflected inwardly to our relation with our writing. Regaining (or developing for the first time!) that creative pleasure unlocks so much creative power. It is creativity that gets us to the unexpected solution, the elegant sentence, the clever thesis, the fresh insight.
Even if you can’t recreate your own poetry camp, maybe you can open up a bit about your writing with a friend or colleague, one that is good at listening and affirming in a genuine way: “Nice work! Keep it going :-D”