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Sam van Zweden

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Poetry

Literary crushes and excitement

I have had one particular literary crush for a long time.

On a writer, and on everything that comes out of her pen. Her laptop… Her mind.

Her name is Josephine Rowe. I saw her reading at the Emerging Writer’s festival 2009… She opened something up to me that I’d never known was there. Some writers are amazing readers, and Ms Rowe has it down pat.

She’s an amazing Melbournian poet. She writes small moments, she writes life-changing moments, she writes her own and she writes other people’s. And when you read them, you almost believe they’re yours.

So this evening when I came across a Readings event involving Josephine Rowe, I got very excited. The write-up is very vague, and indicates little to nothing about what the event actually is… But I’ll be there anyway.

If you want to discover the literary lovin’ that is Josephine Rowe, you should come along also.

Readings Carlton, 6.30pm on the 12th April.

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Floored by the Genius of 16 Year-Olds

Yesterday I went back to my old high school for a day to run a poetry-writing workshop. I did this with quite some hesitation, as I find the idea of “teaching poetry” really problematic, and my high school always seemed to breed a particularly feral kind of 16 year-old.

As soon as I walked into the classroom, kids started screaming questions about who I am, and did my piercings hurt, and am I a qualified teacher, or just some girl?

I was backed up by an ex-teacher and still close friend, so when the kids were told to settle down, we got to discussing poetry and writing some.

Discussions were mixed – some kids had some really good insight and ideas about the poems we looked at. Others really struggled with the idea of wordplay (multiple meanings of words, subtle punch lines, metaphors).

What really got me though, was the absolute loveliness that came from some of these young writers. A small group of boys were really keen to share what they thought the writers intended, and also to share their own writing with the class. Two quiet young ladies sat up the back and wrote really sweet poems about each other and their friendship – they produced the innocent highlight of my day. Working on the use of metaphor and similies, they wrote about how each was a great friend to the other. “Casey is a great friend who is always there for me,” wrote one, “just like my iPod.” In response, her friend described her as “a balloon you want to hold forever”.

One young man broke my heart, writing so honestly about his mother who is struggling with bipolar. I saw so much of myself in him, and while what he wrote missed the mark of the activities we were working on, I think it’s much more important for him to know that his writing is a valid way of expressing and sharing what he’s going through.

Overall, these kids had some really interesting ways of seeing the world, and produced writing stronger than a lot of the stuff I’ve seen from university students.

While my skills as a teacher (and crowd-controller) certainly need some work, I feel like those who were willing to engage in the work really took something away from this workshop. Thus, I feel like I did something good.

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Please understand, this visit was not my idea.

Dear Delicate Progeny of Wonthaggi Secondary College,

Tomorrow we meet for a workshop on poetry writing. I hope you believe I know what I’m talking about, and understand that the unleashing of the artistic mashed potato inside of me was the idea of the English department, and not myself.

Having said this – I hope you appreciate the fact that I went to pains to show you brilliant things written by ’emerging’ young people, and I hope I do not confuse and scare you away from writing poetry forever more. I hope I can manage to make words more exciting than you thought they were, and I hope you take away at least one tiny thing that helps you look at your poetry differently. If I can manage that, it was worth it.

Regards,

Sam.

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Dressing Down

When the decorative parts of me
Are forced away from the world,
I am little more than
A shrivelled Christmas Tree.

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Am I Hitler?

Papers turn to confetti in my hands.
You tear my words from end to end,
A scritching switching of sympathies
From the days behind us
When you stuck them to your forehead,
Like a game of Guess Who.
Celebrity Heads.
Always the same questions –
“Am I alive?”
“Am I an animal?”
“Am I Hitler?”
“Am I Hitler?”
“Am I Hitler?”
Back then, you never were,
But everything since has changed.
Now my words are confetti, which I throw in some delusional celebration
And there is nothing on your forehead
But creases.

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Poetry Workshop

I was recently asked by an old teacher of mine to return to my high school for a day early in December and run a poetry workshop as an end-of-year activity. I thought about it for a while – 16 year olds can be harsh. How do you teach poetry? What if they don’t buy my “I-know-about-writing” act?

Eventually I accepted though.

Uni is finished for the semester. I’m waiting on a call or letter from RMIT, started this new job, writing… So my spare time now is all about this poetry workshop.

I think the best way to do it is by going through a few conventions/techniques, and attaching an example and an exercise to each. The session only goes for 90 minutes so I can’t get too far into things, but they’re young’uns so that’s probably good.

What I’m struggling with is what to use as examples. These kids are 16, I don’t remember what poetry I studied (if any) at that age. I’m thinking about using some Robert Adamson stuff as an example of the use of metaphor, he does that ridiculously well. Other than this, I’m a bit lost as to what to use.

So if anyone reading this here fine blog remembers what they studied in the way of poetry at the age of 16, please oh please comment and let me know. I’d really appreciate some direction, I’d hate to confuse these kids with non-accessible stuff and scare them off writing, or discussing it with the class…

 

S

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Hey Young World, the WORD is yours…

Marc-Bamuthi-Joseph_1web

I’ve been reading Jeff Chang’s Total Chaos: The art and aesthetics of hip-hop… Being a collection of essays, some things are great and others are total shit. That’s the way collections are.

Three essays in, I’m introduced to Marc Bamuthi Joseph… my heart sings, my creativity is tickled, and my head explodes just a little.

 Marc Bamuthi Joseph   is an NYC “arts activist”, whose work is pretty varied but mainly now focusses around hip-hop spoken word and dance. He mentors young kids through a program called Youth Speaks – I can’t even begin to express how happy this makes me. I’m right behind anyone who supports literacy and fosters kids’ creativity. Hell, fosters anyone’s creativity! (I am part of Golden Key International, whose Swinburne chapter supports Ian Thorpe’s Fountain for Youth , they do amazing work also around Indigenous Literacy… but I digress).

In his contribution to Total Chaos, MBJ’s piece (Yet Another) Letter To a Young Poet is a call out to the young writing world now.

“…I’m spending the day reading Rilke. He’s this early-twentieth-century European philosopher-king who writes of creating poetry from the depths of the soul out of an irrepressible, intrinsic need. … I can’t believe that I’m in Africa but my eyes are in the book of yet another dead white guy. And yeah, Young World, you should probably read this shit at some point, you know just ‘cuz, but ultimately it exists in his dead-white-guy vacuum that was never meant to include you.”

Bamuthi makes a clear and honest statement to the “young world” –

“Your elders in rhyme challenge you to find your own voice, to work hard to apply it, and to do so responsibly. If you’re not afraid of your own potential, we promise you that we won’t be. Hey Young World, the word is yours…”

Bless his heart, watching this man move  is a song that makes me want to write.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph inspires me to write, to take control of what I’m writing, to take the word and make it mine. Reading, watching, and listening to him makes me happy.

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Flotsam & Shit

I am a shell full of worms,
A casing filled with maggots.
A rolling ball of shit,
Picking up flotsam
As I race downhill.

What kinds of possibilities are there,
For a stinky tired rolling ball
Of flotsam and shit?

Who employs him?
Who sleeps next to him at night?
Who wants to have ten thousand of his babies?
Who gives him that special litle fluttering at the core of the flotsam and shit?
Who gives himthe comforting tap he needs?
Who will keep this crusted ancient flotsam and shit?

Decay is not an option.

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Tick-Tock Polka

“The Tick-Tock Polka”
-Samantha van Zweden.

This is how I march my way through history –
nailing down my memories
to stop them from
slipping
away.

My lover disappeared and came back to me in pieces.
I swallowed those pieces so I’d always have her near.
My insides groaned as the pieces remembered themselves
and tore at me to let them out.

My mother always told me,
“If you can catch a bird
and put salt on its tail feathers,
you get to take it home.”

I wanted to keep it in a drawer by my bed.

I found a swallow on the ground in our yard.
Its body was broken and still,
an awkward little nature study.

I put it in my drawer and salted its tail.
I pretended.

It wasn’t the same.

I loved a girl who forgot how to love me back.
She switched herself off and shut herself away.

Late at night I climbed through her bedroom window
and, while she perspired dreams,
I severed the fingers of her left hand
leaving her only a thumb.
Her butchered digits sit mute in my pocket.

Tying down.
Putting away.
Holding too close.
This is how I claw through time.

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