Onward and onward. We are in the run of student readings now–the first was last night–with three more on the way. These are often the shining moments of the workshop. The whole nebulous writing experience that they each bring with them to these two weeks starts to assume shape; the ritual of public reading functions as rite of passage. They dress up. They take it seriously. We take it seriously. This is no smoky coffeehouse with a revolving door. And so those heartfelt congratulations awaiting them from their peers after each reading becomes more and more significant. All the work pays off.
The bar was set particularly high by the first reading. Highlights include: a tonal range like an rpm dial, a confident reading corps that started out bullish and never let up, featuring poems written entirely without the use of the letter ‘e’ (a la Ouilpo), twenty-six sentence stories winking at an abecedarium (each sentence beginning with a successive letter of the alphabet), poems either in praise or loathing of the poet’s name, homage to the color yellow, and more than one writer who is scarily good at a surprising age.
Detect a bit of awe in my tone–the instructors, post-reading, all wandered back to our rooms wide-eyed. Pure alchemy, this stuff–a mix of open and talented writers, listening to and working with each other, mixed with a good curriculum and a beautiful place, with perhaps a touch of luck? Maybe you make some gold.
With this group, the mixture seems to be just right.