FEEDBACK ABOUT AND
SAMPLE WRITINGS FROM
THE WORLD STAGE
FALL/WINTER 2005
ANANSI WRITERS WORKSHOP
Created for The World Stage Anansi Writers Workshop Fall/Winter 2005 Literary Series
Jawanza Dumisani, Coordinator
Merilene M. Murphy, Volunteer
Wednesdays (7:30-10:30pm)
Workshop at 7:30-8:30pm | Features at 8:30-9:00pm | Open Mic at 9:05pm
$5 donation
(*All Copyrights Reserved by Writers Published Here)
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| FEEDBACK ABOUT & WRITING SAMPLES FROM
10.05.05
ANTHONY LYONS
featured at 8:30pm, leading a Master Class (7:30-8:30pm) on:
| POETIC PROSE
On Wednesday, 10.05.05, THE WORLD STAGE ANANSI WRITERS WORKSHOP presented ANTHONY LYONS, co-founder of The World Stage Anansi Writers Workshop, graduate of Cal. State University Long Beach in English/Creative Writing and author of five novels. Presented here are writings about and samples writings from ANTHONY LYONS' Master Class and Feature at THE WORLD STAGE ANANSI WRITERS WORKSHOP Wednesday, 10.05.05. Send your feedback and samples to newsletter@theworldstage.org .
FEEDBACK
SPARKLING RECAP & PROJECTED LIGHT
Sparkling Recap
[Anthony Lyons' Feature & Master Class 10.05.05]
& Projected Light
[THE WORLD STAGE Anansi Writers Workshop
Fall/Winter 2005 Line-up]
Tonight's Workshop, all of it -- the master class, the feature, the open mic-- resonates so strongly in me, accolades can't wait. Needed sleep can. i ain't gone do nothing with sleep but revive the rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul beast in me and i'm trying to get to a gentler place with my poetry, with my writing, with my life. Basically, these are my notes from tonight i'm typing from the page, from my mind, from my heart.
Tonight, novelist and co-founder of the Anansi Writers Workshop Anthony Lyons poured a few new pages into the book of breath many of us call Wednesday nights at The World Stage.
Anthony's Poetic Prose master class, a 20-minute lecture followed by 40-minute exercise and participation, challenged and outstood the sundown heat of October 5, 2005's Santa Anas. Anthony is so cool, exercises by Matt Gibson, Peter J. Harris, Sequoia Mercier, V. Kali, Stephanie Allen and everyone present were reciprocally precious. It was difficult for me to believe what i heard read aloud had been written in five minute bouts.
For instance, here's a taste of Anthony's effect on what Matt Gibson wrote and read:
"I see the Stage like tall grass waving in the breeze of blue light... transmitting sound to jazz lovers on other planets."
So there we all were after the master class, thinking in all our maintained coolness maybe we had given Anthony too much privilege to outblow desert night Santa Anas blowing Ramadan and Rosh Hashona first high holy days under crescent moon and star. And then, he blew us away some more.
Anthony's featured reading was "an interruption"-- a short story he'd been interrupted by to write in the midst of writing chapter nine of his fifth novel. Superb. And believe you me, Anthony can deliver the goods of the poetry in the prose.
Tonight's feature Anthony Lyons and master class Poetic Prose was a hit for me. Thank you, Anthony, for sparkling. i am sparked.
i can't wait for next Wednesday and next and next.
[ http://www.theworldstage.org/popwe.html ]
Pleasant dreams.
~
merilene m. murphy
Anansi Writers Workshop volunteer
10.06.05
After a 20-minute lecture about techniques poets and prosists use, during his Master Class on POETIC PROSE, novelist ANTHONY LYONS asked Anansi Writer Workshop participants to write in two five minutes rounds about The World Stage as a space. LYONS challenged writers first to write a list and second to embellish the list as a prose statement with poetic twists. Here are sample writings inspired in ANTHONY LYONS' POETIC PROSE Master Class written by Anansi Writers Workshop participants (the copyrights which of course belong to the writers):
Matt Gibson
Peter J. Harris
Olivia Sequoia Mercier
Stephanie Allen
Matt Gibson
"I see the Stage like tall grass waving in the breeze of blue light... transmitting sound to jazz lovers on other planets."
Peter J. Harris
"Reasons" seeps through the walls on the wind of falsetto. Love lost. Love found. words stretched like music, the preacher tilts his head in concentration at his pulpit. How can he respect the piety of tonight's educational mission when he's flooded by memories of love lost, love found? He is so passionate about the passage he's reading that he stutters. He angles the white sheets of paper so the stage lights shine on the words. He is at home in front of us. He helped build this church. He stands erect. His yellow shirt drapes his confidence. His dreads frame his face. The light glints off his tinted glasses. His sermon has just begun, but his voice blends with the echoes of words he's spoken here for years.
Olivia Sequoia Mercier
High ceiling holds perpendicular steel arm twirling fan upside down umbrella over our heads; circulating air lifts us with the robin's nest blue walls beyond where we are and simultaneously roots us here close to the ground to smell the leather of sandals and bare feet that came here before us tenacious and intent to create a place that would call us in from the cold, warmth pulsing with all the reasons why there wasn't enough time, enough money, to do what had to be done to leave a monument a legacy to the music, to the poetry, to the lives that are saved here over and over again. And the reasons that we are here slips under our writing pad sliding our pens along because we must do this thing, spill and splash our late nite early morning voices across the page stitching torn lives together when levies break and/or are bombed and the water misses Congo Square because the voodoo still do work apparently and the screams of the dispossessed are not silenced in the roar of water…break the convulsive terror of time turned in on itself…there is now and nothing else.
Stephanie Allen
Incense is thick. Smells like Nag Champa that Brandy used to buy on the Venice boardwalk when she was 15. Sky blue crayon colored walls. Glossy. Or is that semi-gloss? Can wipe off smudges with a damp sponge. African print fabric in the doorway to the backroom. The stage is small, but I've seen it jammed with musicians jamming their hearts out. My own 14 year old stepson has sat at that piano and ratcheted up the tempo of the old guard players who usually keep it mellow.
Merilene greets me each week at the door. Always makes me feel welcome when she punches my ten-spot card. I've got a new one now. It's blue. The old one was red. Man, did I feel good when I filled up that red card.
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