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Editor’s Note re Poet
After my retirement
from medical practice, it was my great good fortune to pursue a Master of Fine
Arts in Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. One of the peak
experiences there was the opportunity to study both in person and online with the
expatriot American poet/writer Peter Levitt.
Peter offers online
writing workshops for writers in any genre which you can read about beneath his
photo below. He can be reached at levgram@telus.net.
Within Within
Spring
is within a plum twig, bearing the snow—cold
--Eihei Dogen, 1243
No
one can say what this life is.
Snow,
spring, plum twig, and bearing,
each
thing is cold cold cold
and
cold cold cold
is
snow, spring, plum twig and bearing.
This
is within and this is
what
is within. Bearing
sorrow
in silence
or
holding our happiness
for
the world
are
just plum twigs
bearing
snow.
Shouting
joy at passing cars
or
whispering I’m going
to
kill myself
is
the heat of petals
in
winter, the blossoming
of
snow drops in spring.
Don’t
try and don’t quit,
that’s
the best I can say.
People
who love you
and
people who need you
and
people you love
and
those you hate
come
to the same thing.
No
matter how you turn,
you
can never turn fast
or
far enough. There
is
no escaping
the
ten directions
or
ten thousand things,
even
when you die.
So
take it easy.
Have
a Cuban cigar.
Your
shoulders are
wide
as the path
is
wide, your heart as open
as
one blossom
two
snow falls
three
bows to the east
and
four kisses,
one
on each cheek.
Peter’s website is at
www.peterlevitt.com. Here’s Peter’s description of how Writer’s
Studio works:
Each week I offer
participants in Writer’s Studio a brief teaching and an exercise based
on that teaching. These will appear in a folder on a secure, password protected
website that will form our virtual classroom. (Each week’s exercise will be
dated and have its own folder so you will easily be able to find it any time
you like.) During the following week, participants will work with the teaching
and exercise and, if they wish, they will be able to post their writing in a
different folder for other participants to read. Once the writing is posted,
discussion amongst participants can begin. Only those who have registered for Writer’s
Studio will have access to the classroom and folders where the teaching,
exercise, participant writings and discussion will appear. I will ask everyone
to agree not to share the exercises or the writing with friends who have not
registered. This seems a fair enough commitment and works to everyone’s
benefit.
The software that
creates our classroom has proven to be very easy to use, even to those amongst
us who are techno-phobic, so please don’t be daunted by previous online
experiences. Participants will be organized into small groups to ensure that
you are not overwhelmed with too much posting, reading or discussion; the small
group format also maximizes the sharing, support, trust, communication and
learning as you and other group members discuss the writing and any writer’s
issues that come up. I will participate quite a bit in the discussion regarding
the process of writing, which has proven to be of great use to people, but I
won’t be critiquing the weekly writing. That would be too costly from a
participant’s standpoint and is available from me outside of Writer’s Studio
courses. Besides, the level of
discussion offered by group members has proven to be supportive, useful,
specific, and deeply encouraging in every single course I’ve offered. It is one of the real treasures of the
Writer’s Studio.
Posting your writing
is entirely voluntary – you may do so at any time or not at all. We’ve
never had a problem in Writer’s Studio, but I am a strong believer in online
etiquette and will keep a close eye on the groups to be sure that the
discussions maintain an environment that is safe, positive, supportive, and
exciting.
Important note: Sometimes it is
nice to have friends in your group, and sometimes it feels good to
simply work with people you don’t yet know. If you have any “include me
with…..” preferences, I will do my best to honour them so please let me know on
your registration form.
The teachings and
exercises I’ve created for Writer’s Studio will help you to go to that
generous and deep place within you from which authentic writing spontaneously
emerges. As often as not they will take you by surprise, which tends to
generate genuine writing. This has been my approach for more than three decades
of teaching. Of course, my weekly
offerings will rise out of my particular orientation, which many people in my
workshops seem to enjoy and find inspiring, so if you think you’d like to have
a bit of this in your life, welcome aboard. I also encourage you to let your
other writing friends know about this opportunity, so please give my email
address to interested friends as soon as possible.
My email address is levgram@telus.net
The
Chickasaw Plum - Volume VI - Number 5 - May 2009
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