Workshop Sandwich

by Jonterri Gadson

After my last workshop, I met with Greg for a 30 minute weekly one-on-one meeting. These meetings are optional, but I plan to take advantage as much as possible. So in my first meeting with him, we talked about my feelings about the first workshop and he gave me suggested readings. He said something that I found rather significant:

*In undergrad workshops, praise is a major form of support. At the level of the MFA, the support comes in the form of how serious your classmates take your writing and in the time that they put into commenting on your work and in sharing their thoughts on your work with you.*

I'm learning that he has a very casual way of saying major, perspective-shaping things lol. I was nervous about going into this meeting and not having anything to say or that it would be awkward. This wasn't the case at all. Greg is very easy to talk to, especially about poetry.
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Yesterday, I had my second workshop and another one of my pieces was discussed. After giving it some honest thought, I realized that much of my anxiety about the first workshop stemmed from my feelings about the piece I submitted. I had somehow decided that the piece was basically already done before I turned it in to be workshopped. I mean, I thought it was pretty impressive. Yeah, you don't want to really have that thought about a piece if you're going to have it workshopped because you will be proven wrong (and rightfully so in most cases).

So the piece that was up today was one that I had taken as far as I could take it but couldn't exactly get it to where I wanted to be. Because of this I was truly open to the feedback. And I got great feedback. The thing that trips me out about workshop is that people seem to pick up on all the things you think you can brush over in a piece and all of your motivations. I love it when they have the same questions as I have about my own work. No, it doesn't answer the question always, but it does help to confirm that there is something questionable in the piece.
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I met with Greg again earlier today. After discussing with me the distance I've been putting between myself and the speakers in my poems in various ways, I shared with him that I worry that my poems will come off like I'm a whining victim if I get too close. I shared that I was worried that my writing sample had been just a bunch of victim poems that wouldn't get me anywhere lol. He suggested I let that go and that a victim is passive and the act of writing poetry is to take control, to make beauty out of that truth. He phrased it bettter. Then he lent me a copy of his book, Poetry as Survival. The timing couldn't be anymore perfect for that gesture.

I consider myself a risk taker when it comes to the subjects of my poems. This meeting helped me to realize that I actually haven't been risking enough.

So are you all meeting with your professors? How is that going?

Do you get the title of this post? lol Yes, workshop my blog post, please.