Creative Workshops 2007
Jan/Feb Writing Newsletter
In memoriam: John
O’Donahue, Celtic mystic, poet, lover of
beauty
On the day when the weight
deadens on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you. (John O’Donahue)
John O’Donahue died this
month. His wisdom and images live on in many of us
***
The self came to its belated birth (or
second birth) by reading visionary poetry.
(Harold Bloom)
Dear writer
May this year - however you count it,
whenever, wherever it begins for you - be one rich in words.
May the unexpected inspire you.
May you entertain 366 new words.
I’ve been reading Harold Bloom, a life long student of comparative religion. He writes of his awakening
to his potential at around nine. For him, poets such as William Blake and Hart
Crane, “have the power to awaken their readers to an implicit answering power.”
William Wordsworth called this sensation “ something evermore about to
be.” Hart Crane writes:
and so it was I entered the broken world
to trace the visionary company of love
its voice
an instant in the wind
Have you ever thought you parents are not
really your parents? Bloom links this
experience to the feeling children often have – what Freud called the
changeling fantasy. “Adoptive parents have plucked us away from fairy land and
pass themselves off as our mother and father .” Reading the poets gave him this
feeling where the language “gave the pleasure of excited thought, of a thinking
that changed ones outer nature, while opening up an inner identity, a self
within a self.”
May you find this inner identity – this
answering power. I’d like to think I did in a poem born on Christmas day:
Christmas
Questions
does an angel annunciate
as each of us drops
into human form,
the wonder of double fathers
and a woman magnified,
made mystery?
do the herald ones sing
for us, for me, born in a flat
above a bank and cinema
in a diamond sky town,
each Christmas a reminder
of our crib and winged calling?
are there corresponding roads
donkeys and innkeeper no’s,
shepherds, wise ones, gifts
to the power of trinity,
sheep and cattle attending?
and will every Herod’s curse
hang bitter as myrrh,
embalm that silent night
in reds and browns
after the pangs before first cry?
are our days anointed
rich as
frankincense,
that
resin-tear balm
that
bleeds from trees
on desert
edges?
and will the twinkle we come from,
grow God incarnated afresh,
star matter swaddled in flesh
spun into sun gold,
in every breath thread
and shuttle cell?
Dorian’s Workshops
Sun 27 Jan 09h00-13h00
We discover meaning by creating a
work or doing a deed, by experiencing… goodness, truth and beauty … nature and
culture or by encountering someone and lastly, by the attitude we take toward
unavoidable suffering. (Viktor Frankl)
We explore the meaning that is unique to
you, through the art of creative writing. You will be guided to seek your
creativity and imagination and find words to tell your story… to infuse that
story with meaning and make it more alive.
The workshop also focuses on how to be present in our writing and engage
readers and ourselves as part of a great conversation that opens into mystery.
book
through Coral Wilder coralw@telkomsa.net 011 622-8793
083 450-9148
Franschhoek Literary Festival: Exchanging Energies Writing your Book R190
This workshop is about writing that book
that has been hiding inside you for too long. Writing is about a conversation
with yourself and with others. An exchange of energies. Writing is a skill not talent. In the course you will breathe life into
the words and engage a reader while allowing her/him space to be creative.
Here is some of the work planned for 08
·
a ‘writer in residence’ assignment at Penryn College Nelspruit
·
metaphors and healing for hypnotherapists (Egoli 5-6 April contact Ian Opperman ian@ianopperman.com
)
·
working with grassroots poets in Franschhoek in preparation for the May
Franschhoek Literary Festival
·
a creative writing workshop at the Cape International Book Fair mid June
through Carl Schlettwein Foundation
·
co-ordinating a Storywell team training caregivers in creative modalities
to prompt stories from children infected/affected by HIV/AIDS and to offer them
psycho/social support. (other Team members: Elma Pollard, Philippa
Kabali-Kagwa, Toto Gxabela)
·
…and in other lands
·
creative journal writing with students in teacher training in
·
stories and leadership in
·
Poetry and Beauty, the Fourth Art Management and Organization Conference
in
What would you like to see on the writing
calendar? Speak Speak
Joint Workshop Ventures
Here are some partnership adventures:
·
25-28 April – story telling at Buddhist Retreat Centre Ixopo with Bob
Commin
·
5-9 May - The Helderberg Writing Escape extravaganza with Jo Casto
(magazine articles, business writing) Elma Pollard (journalism and creative
journaling) and Dorian (life story/fiction )
·
Mon 24 – Fri 28 Nov – Writing, Reflecting, Being. Hogsback East
Mentoring
…through the one-on-one mentoring I offer,
aspirants and writers from southern
5-
Email Courses
there are 4 on offer…some folks respond
to structure, assignments and seek
writing companions… join writes from the great anywhere…
Write Write Write: Writers’ Development: Email Course
(WWW)
Want to craft stories? Write your life story? Elma Pollard who has been
facilitating this course since it began two years ago (muchas gacias Elma) is
now concentrating on her environmental journalism – writing her Green column
for the Bolander and teaching environmental writing
(starlight@wol.co.za.) Peter Merrington
, writing
coach, former Prof of English at UWC, has joined our Creative Workshop team. He
will facilitate Write Write Write (www.petermerrington.co.za.) based on my book The
Writer’s Voice. Next course Feb –May 08. Contact me for detailed flyer.
Poem Poem Poem (PPP) Making Poetry
(Dorian/ Bob Commin )
Bring forth the poet hiding inside. Slip past the critic to the fields
that Rumi sings of – “out between ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is
a field. I’ll meet you there.” Next course Feb. 08. Beginners welcome. One sub- group of six has already started in
Jan. Welcome to Samantha
The
Poet’s Voice (PVC) Advanced Writing Course (Dorian/Bob Commin)
The apprentices master the trade…We begin
focussing on poets we love and lean via osmosis. Next course Feb. 08.
Flyer on request. Welcome to Sue Gow and
Cathy Hasleau so far.
Poetry for Publication (PFP)
Bob and I guide you in writing and selecting your poems for a shared or
solo self publication. PFP arises from a question Anne-Marie Moore asked after
completing PVC.
“Where to next?”
Two Books a coming
I’ve been a’writing away. The
Halo and the Noose, the Power of story-telling and story listen in Business
Life with Graham Williams will be out during the first quarter. We run
corporate story workshops based on our book. (look at my site for details) The Achilles Heal, The Healing Art
and Craft of Poetry with Bob Commin
will be out later in the year.
Workshops/Literary Events with other Folk
Bob Commin (poet,
creativity coach , storyteller and pastor) runs poetry courses/events in the Southern Suburbs (
Come, come whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper
Lover of leaving, It doesn't matter (Rumi)
Working with the Artist’s Way Join this creative project on Tuesday afternoons from 16.00 -18.00
and rediscover and nurture your own
creativity. Fish Hoek. 5th February next course starts
Peter Merrington (like me, a
resigned Professor of English literature) is running small group adventures in creativity in his garden
library in Plumstead/Constantia in the
peter@merrington.co.za His first book of fiction, Zebra Crossing: Tales
from the Shaman’s Record, (Jacana
Press) is due out in 2008.
Writer-sites and News
Mandy Lebides’ www.writescapes.com is alive and well. Mandy is a great motivator.
(Thanks to Erna Buber-de Villiers who handles both Mandy and my sites.
(zakerna@cyberserv.co.za)
Remember to check out Lee Cahill’s www.sabookworm.com Thanks you
Lee for a site that informs and supports writers. This is writer good news.
Wordsetc A South
African Literary Journal Loosely based on the idea of The New Yorker, this is a
new literary journal to look out for.
AND The BBC Bookclub http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/world_book_club.shtml
Writers need to read as part of self-tutorship. I suggest you subscribe to New Contrast (poetry and prose)
– 4 copies per annum for R210. Hugh Hodge, the editor is doing a fine job for
writers. Thank you Hugh. newcontrasted@gmail.com
May you find the self within the self. May your
writing be an asking and an answering.
Dorian
PS Thank you to all those who circulate this letter.
Dr Dorian Haarhoff
021 855 3937 / 082 873 6802/ fax 086 511 4751
http://dorianhaarhoffwriter.homestead.com