By Ryan Pratt

Ryan Pratt. Photo by Mike Levin.

Ten minutes spent circling rain-soaked pavement, counting the peepholes of the Queensway’s rusted barrier, and I still couldn’t face the entrance again.  Nothing about Fisher Park Public School, an unassuming elementary school in the heart of West Ottawa, could be construed as threatening, yet those thin lockers of its inner halls had given me a fright, calling to mind near-identical closet-spaces I’d once leaned against in high school, scribbling verses with my head down, shoulders rounded.

I was 17 years old when I wrote that first poem, a livewire spark that would spawn a whirlwind of private collections and accumulating ego.  Still, passing these lockers to enter my first poetry workshop, I couldn’t help but be haunted by the idea that, 11 years on, I’m no better of a writer than I was then. If self-doubt is the unraveling of creativity, a welcoming of cookies and tea signaled a sweet changeover as Sandra Ridley -winner of the bpNichol Chapbook Award for her collection Lift - graciously ushered me to take a seat of my choosing.

As facilitator to the workshop From One Poem To Many, Ridley’s icebreaker of an introduction wasted no time proving what a wise choice she was; virginal enough to relive her artistic beginnings (she only started submitting her work in 2005), yet empathetic to all the subsequent rejection letters and tests-of-patience we aspiring writers can look forward to.

Emphasizing the need to treat this youngsters’ classroom as a safe-place for creative discussion, her poise and friendliness disarmed many of my pre-workshop jitters, even as neighbouring weekend classes – including a daycare that sporadically erupted in song and a group of Japanese Taiko drummers – sought to penetrate our calm.

Write, write, write

Following polite introductions from all seven class members, Ridley launched us into the first of several writing exercises, each bent on exploring how to weave one poem into a body of work.  Write a poem about this particular, strange item.  Write a run-on sentence and then break it, line by line, into a poem.  Write a poem in response to this opening line, or – my biggest challenge – write additional lines within the spaces of this classic poem. Write, write, write.

Now it’s one thing to write on the spot, under pressure and on a subject chosen by someone else, but it’s another thing entirely to write knowing that you’ll be sharing those results with a group of strangers.  Adhering to the communal nature of these exercises, whereby everyone’s work is shared in an effort to promote group trust, was difficult for me, although I’d be lying if I said that each exercise didn’t produce eye-opening results.  Being taken out of your familiar creative parameters and away from your favourite writing chair can trigger surprising new muses and, in my case, material I would’ve never written on my own.

Time-pressured and encouraged not to self-edit, the seven of us latched onto fleeting thoughts and distant memories for inspiration as if each exercise was ghostwritten by our subconscious selves.  In the blind rush of it all, we revealed as much about ourselves as about our craft.

Not that we had much of anything to say about it, though. Our kinship as hopeful poets aside, it’s pretty much impossible to instill a stable enough rapport between colleagues to warrant exchanging constructive criticism.  In that respect, the final 15 minutes of workshop dedicated to reading from our own works-in-progress ensued without so much as a hiccup of discourse, each poem followed by a smile and a nod. I suppose a three-hour workshop can only breach so many boundaries, especially after shaking loose our rigid writing habits with exercises I’ll surely revisit on my own time.

Ridley the enabler

Sandra Ridley enabled us to write outside our own inspirations, to gather ideas littered beyond the creative paths we instinctively wander and ro entwine them onto a greater body of work.  She stressed the command held by punctuation and line-breaks, the balance one weighs between abstract and concrete imagery and how to find one’s own style amid poetry’s infinite possibilities.  She even offered submission tips, including ways to word one’s cover letter and how to research whether a publication is the right fit for one’s work.

As I descended the steps of Fisher Park, even the vague disappointment I had felt while reading my own poem was absorbing new understanding; I wasn’t let down by how my words fell flat on silent colleagues so much as how my words resonated to me.  For the first time, that poem I’d prided myself on felt rhyme-heavy, cloying and clichéd in ways I would’ve recognized had I ever read my work aloud before.  Another lesson learned.

Now a pessimist could easily take this workshop to heart, bemoaning the intimidating odds of being published and falling upon their pen in defeat; and perhaps that’s what I would’ve done at 17.  At 28, however, I’ll take these humbling revelations as needed pushes to evolve and shape my style.  Pushes, for the record, I’ve never felt from the comforts of my desk.