![]() In May 2017, a group of Mile-High MFA students attended a remote residency in Ireland, spending a week writing together, learning about craft, exploring Irish culture and literature, and supporting each other in their growth as artists. The Mile-High MFA offers the remote residency every spring where writers can learn from local writers and explore another country's art and culture. [Photo by Deanna Rasch] Becoming a writer also means becoming a part of the literary community. We often think of writing as a solitary act—and in many ways, it is—but we also need a network of support to get us through those long hours laboring through our passion projects. That community pushes us to step away from the endless scroll through Twitter and Instagram and instead attend a workshop or reading series to perhaps provide the motivation and inspiration needed to fulfill our own projects.
But being a part of the literary community also requires its members to give back from time to time. Whether that means teaming up with local prisons to provide writing workshops for the incarcerated, starting an after-school literacy program for young kids, or even creating a website for book reviews to expose people to works and authors that may get overlooked, any involvement has the potential to improve and bolster a community. As a requirement of the Mile-High MFA (from which I graduated and which is affiliated with Inverted Syntax), students submit a Writing in the World action plan before graduating, detailing how each student will use their writing talents to engage and serve their communities. Many of the ideas students in the Mile-High MFA have suggested often revolve around bringing attention to the art that often gets overlooked and the writers whose voices aren’t quite as loud as some others. These projects strive to create an all-inclusive space for art to be appreciated, no matter the artist, subject matter, or even quality. As a Denver writer, I’m always looking out for new events and organizations in my community that support other writers. With organizations like Denver Writes, which provides young Denver writers with a supportive community and creative opportunities to express themselves through writing, or FBOMB, a flash fiction reading series, there are resources for every kind of writer in Denver and in most communities around the country. Both of these organizations--and many others--strive to help writers strengthen their craft and confidence in their work. In fact, FBOMB states that their mission is to “1: become better readers of our work; 2: become better promoters of ourselves and each other; 3: share the spotlight with one another, and 4: build community around flash fiction.” Being a writer is not all about getting our work published and promoting our work. It’s instead about recognizing the beauty in all art and lifting our work and others’ work a little higher so it gets seen. We’re all trying to make sense of the world and our role within it, which automatically puts us in the same community anyway. It’s this engagement that makes being a part of a literary community so special. It’s our duty to help each other succeed and make sure everyone has a chance to make their voice heard and their art to be recognized as a valuable expression of meaning. In any case, isn’t the world a better place with more art? Who are we to put limits on what can be seen, heard, felt, experienced? The world is certainly wide enough for us all. A few Denver organizations and projects that engage and serve their communities: At the Inkwell Reading Series Colorado Writing School Denver Writes FBOMB Flash Fiction Series Lighthouse Writers Workshop Lit Crawl Denver (September 8, 2018) Literary Citizen LitQuake Mile-High Review Poetry Out Loud Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Words Beyond Bars What are some of the organizations or events in your community that help encourage and support writers? List them in the comments below, and don’t forget to invite a fellow writer along to the next reading or to join your writing workshop. By Kathryne Lim Poetry is the only art form that aims to engage its audience through three distinct areas, or modalities. Those modalities being visual, the form or shape a poem takes on the page; textual, or the creation of meaning through written words; and auditory, or the formation of sounds and how a poem is heard. While aware of these areas, many poets fall short of exploring all three with an equal level of skill and attention. Though not Diana Khoi Nguyen.
I recently heard Nguyen read from her debut book, Ghost Of--which won the Omnidawn 2016/17 Open Poetry Book Prize--at Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop in Denver. I knew then that I was listening to something different, something that blurred and tested the limits of what poetry can do. A few days later, I ordered the book and was not disappointed. In the book, Nguyen abandons regular stanzaic form, opting instead for sprawling lines, floating fragments, and justified blocks of text. Additionally, she creates forms--circles, shards, silhouettes--from the words on the page. These forms often appear directly beside the images from which they were taken, such as haunting images of family photographs, out of which Nguyen’s brother had cut himself before taking his own life. The text of the first Triptych that appears in the book mirrors the shape of the family photograph appearing on the preceding page. Within the text, as within the photograph, is a white space where Nguyen’s brother’s form is missing. In appearance, the block text looks structured and contained. But the words themselves create long rambling prose that has no clear beginning or end. When Nguyen read from the Triptych, her voice was measured and clear. When she came to the white space within the text, her voice dropped off abruptly, remained silent for every missing beat, and then returned with the same measured assuredness. The silence in the middle of the poem was unnerving, captivating the audience. The silent beats came unexpectedly and often in the middle of a word, creating even more jarring breaks, such as: I am list ening dropped th e needles my hands encl ose the environment I don’t believe I have ever experienced white space at such a visceral level, and the auditory experience ultimately led me to purchase the book. It taught me how to hear Nguyen’s poems in my head, how to take my time with them, how to read them. While absence and grief are the prevailing themes of the book, Ghost Of is filled with an undeniable spirit. In trying to make sense of something that cannot be made sense of, Nguyen utilizes a variety mediums and is not afraid to be messy or playful or new. Near the end of the book, a sort of revelation can be seen in the poem “Reprise” when Nguyen writes, “Like some strange music: the world started up again around him.” Ghost Of leaves readers with gives me a feeling of hope--Hope from the fact that art is evolving and our own role in creating it is evidence that we are alive. The experimentation and breadth of Ghost Of is proof that poetry is still very much alive and is even better when shared with its audience in multiple forms. |
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