San Miguel International Writer's Conference

Last month (February 13-18) I visited a friend in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The San Miguel International Writer’s Conference was being held that week, so I decided to participate in a small way by attending one of the guest speaker presentations and signing up for a workshop.

 

                                      San Miguel street with parish church in the distance. 

My friend and I kept busy that week. Another friend, Leslie, who is a patron of the San Miguel Writers Conference, shared tickets with us to hear Benjamin Lorr speak while I was there. Brooklynite Benjamin Lorr, high school teacher and writer of non-fiction books, embarked on his writing career with Hell Bent, a wild exploration of the world of yoga. His second book, The Secret Life of Groceries, delves into the inner workings of supermarkets and grocery stores. I haven’t read either book, but I understand he makes what sound like dull subjects into something close to magical.

Lorr’s presentation focused on the importance of becoming intimate with your subject matter before you write about it. “You can be much more honest,” he said, yet keep your readers immersed in what you have to say, partly due to your credibility, partly with the level of detail, interrelationships, and nuances you include.

                                                                   

The workshop I chose to attend was led by Laura Juliet Wood. Ms. Wood lives in San Miguel where she teaches English and writing to children. She earned a B.A. in creative writing from Hollins University and an M.F.A. from Columbia. Her poetry has been widely published.

She presented us with a number of examples of prose poetry, some of which, like a couple of poems by Amy Lowell, I found surprising. While analyzing the structure of numerous examples, I learned prose poetry is well-constructed prose that uses typical poetic devices such as alliteration, rhythmic phrasing, metaphor, etc. with limited rhyming and punctuation. I came away realizing much of the poetry favored by contemporary journals and anthologies is prose poetry, possibly because readers find it more accessible. I also came away happy to know that most of the poems I write are prose poems.

Quick-change Artist

                         by Ginger Dehlinger

Cirrus ceiling,

artist's dream canvas

stippled with flicks of flame

scarlets glowing hotter

corals burning brighter

at the horizon

where a fat, black, lizard of a cloud

basks in the incandescent orange

skin on fire, nose to tail.

Stunned by its own masterpiece

the sun lets go of the day

snuffs out the lizard's fiery halo

and pinkwashes the skyline,

turning once-passionate cloudlets

into daubs of mauve and lilac

that cool and coalesce

in the pearl-gray hush of twilight.