Is your writing on the flabby side? Do you need a good workout to get your poetry in shape or revitalize your writing practice?
Next Saturday, I will be teaching at the Ojai Writer’s Conference Poetry Bootcamp which runs Saturday, June 30 and Sunday, July 1.This is the last weekend of a month long series of writing activities, workshops, and events.
You can attend one or both days–it’s $50 for either Saturday or Sunday or $99 for the whole weekend which is a great deal for 6 hours of workshops from 4 teachers!
Saturday, June 30:
1-3 pm: “Hello, Nature, What Do You Have to Tell Me Today?” with Gwendolyn Alley {Read Bio Here} – Take the lessons learned from Haiku (expressing emotion through observations of nature) and apply them to other forms of writing. Also learn to transform writing (prose) into poetry.
3-5 pm: “Speak Your Heart – Unravel Your Life’s Purpose Through The Mysterious Language Of Your Soul” with akka b. {Read Bio Here} – As part of her Poetry With Purpose series, akka b. introduces poetic tools to help decode and access the specific gift/s we are all born with and ways to implement them in daily life. Akka challenges her students to dive deep into the poetry of the heart, where fragments of personal story and experience are illuminated profoundly, and practically applied. At the end of the two hour class, participants will have not only a more meaningful understanding of poetry, they will have an original poem – evidence of their renewed relationship to the unique expression of their soul.
Sunday, July 1:
1-3 pm: “If Your Poem Had Footnotes…” with Perie Longo {Read Bio Here} – It has been said in every poem we write is the seed for the next poem. It is also true in each poem there is a place it can deepen by filling in the emotional tension left out in the editing process. Bring one poem (and some copies to share) to examine and discover invisible poems struggling to come from the dark, along with honoring what is already there, making more of it. We will also write a poem/s inspired by your own.
3-5 pm:“Chocolate, Wine and Poetry Tasting Workshop” with Sandra Hunter {Read Bio Here}– Afternoon of eating chocolate, sipping wine and writing sensory-inspired poetry … Organic chocolate from local Chocolatiers (chili chocolate fudge and citrus-infused chocolates) and local Casa Barranca Vineyard wines. Given that this is the last segment of Poetry Bootcamp, enjoy finishing or polishing up poems to share during the Pink Moment Sunset finale gathering.
To illustrate his point, he showed a video interview with Talia Leman. Leman, 15, is the founder of RandomKid http://www.randomkid.org. This video is from her talk at TEDxYSE: Unleashing Young Social Entrepreneurs on November 13th, 2010.
Key to moving or shifting from a network to a community is making a connection and elevating values. How? Brenegar starts with a story about the six lessons from Johnny Bunko by Daniel Pink:
1) there is no plan
2) think strengths not weaknesses
3) it’s not about you
4) persistence trumps talent
5) make excellent mistakes
6) leave an impact
In a contest, Brenegar offered that the 7th lesson be “Say thanks everyday.” He lost out to “Stay hungry” by Becky Blanton, thanks to support by Seth Godin who motivated his community to vote for her.
But Ed won too–he ended up with a transformation strategy he calls the 5 actions of gratitude; he posted this chart on his site:
1) Say Thanks–tangibly!– Everyday
Use notecards and send them out all the time. If in doubt, send one! This connects you with the person.
2) Give Back
It’s more than money, it’s time.
3) Be welcoming
4) Honor Others
5) Create Goodness
Some questions to consider…
Who are we impacting?
You do what you can do the best you can and invite others to do the same. The more we learn about how to do that the better we will all be.
What opportunities do we have?
What keeps our community from creating the impact we desire?
Dr. Al-Ali starts with the foundation of how to form an organization that can change the world: you need good people, open mindshare, mutual collaboration, and positive impact.
Which begs the question: who are good people? how do we find them and bring them together? You build a magnet using these principles:
1) make it simple
2) place trust and loyalty first
3) give before you take—nothing can be placed in a closed hand
4) honor the mentor/apprentice tradition
5) seek collaborative community
—without this, your employees will see you as a paycheck
6) apply social norms
7) favor wealth creation over wealth collection
8) be a positive change agent
An organization needs structures supporting people instead of people serving structures (the brand etc, the people behind the logo).
People who want to be more involved with this organization can apply to be a fellow.
Now stone sculptor Michele Chapin of Stoneworks Studio is asking Seth about how to approach art sales now that people can see it all on the internet but what they buy is the story.
What is worth more is famous, says Seth to Michele.
What he finishes the manifesto with his not changing it from the top down but from the parent, child, and activist level–the community level. It’s a grass-roots movement that’s happening more and more. We need to stop handing over authority to the institution, he advises.
When I go up, I tell him a little about myself and my college students, and I ask him what he would do with my summer school classes. He suggests I get them blogging which is what I have done in the past. But what is key or different that clicks is getting them blogging EVERY DAY. He suggests that I contact Cathy Davidson who is doing something similar.
Last words: If you can’t connect with people, change the message.
Thanks to business coach and WEV instructor Gloria Miele for taking this photo and sharing it on facebook.
Members of Seth Godin’s invite only Triiibes ning have invaded Ventura’s beachfront Crowne Plaza Hotel for a weekend of conviviality and transformation entitled “Flow Ventura 2012”. Activities range from surf lessons to more traditional business and success related talks–see schedule below.
While the events are limited to members of Triibes (and the occasional local Linchpin), it is being video-taped; when the material gets up, I will link to it here.
It’s a lot of fun as you might guess from my WordPress tattoo which earned me a WordPress moleskin journal in 2008!
This year on Friday WordCampSF offered a new users workshop. If you missed this full day of learning how to blog, and you’d like me to tutor you, let me know! I can teach you!
Saturday is for developers and Sunday is for content creators.
It’s all sold out but you can still attend by joining the livestream and following along the conversation and main points on Twitter. Check out the hashtags #wordcampsf and #wcsf. You might also check out @kashaziz suggestion that there’s a crowdsourced collection of slides from #wcsf here – lanyrd.com/2011/wordcamps…. People can sign in with Twitter to add more.
I attended and “live” blogged sessions at WordCampSF in 2008 and 2009 (plus WordCampLA 2009); it’s just worked out for me to go tomorrow for Sunday’s session, so subscribe to this site (and Art Predator!) and you’ll get what to me are the most important highlights.
Here are some of my blog posts from previous WordCamp Sessions as originally posted over at Art Predator. As I review them, I realize how much I’ve learned from going to WordCamp and I’m excited about learning more tomorrow!
On Monday June 27 I will be reading my poetry and discussing my writing process, writing practice and The 3:15 Experiment with two classes of Ventura College writing students. I will be speaking with the first class at 10:50am in Trailer 5 for about an hour; I will meet with the second class at 1:50pm in J-1. I’ll also be selling and signing my new book, Middle of the Night Poems From Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son (en theos press 2011).
You are welcome to join us! Ventura College is located at 4667 Telegraph Road, Ventura, CA 93003. It costs $1 to park and there are maps around campus to guide you to the classroom.
If you can’t make the reading but want to buy a copy of Middle of the Night Poems From Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son, it’s available in print and ebook editions at www.entheospress.com and in Ojai at Barts Books, in Camarillo at Mrs Figgs Bookworm and in Ventura at Kama Sutra Closet.
This is a public service announcement–with guitars! Are you an Artist, Writer or Creator? Do you want to know what COPYRIGHT means and what it protects? Would you like to understand what infringement is? What is fair use? Or whether you have international protection?
Ventura lawyer Kate Brolan promises an informative and interesting presentation “Copyright for Artists, Writers and Creators” on these subjects at the Bell Arts Factory Weds June 15th at 6PM. And it’s free!
Bell Arts Factory is located at 432 N. Ventura Blvd. in Ventura. Please RSVP by email to k8brolanlawATgmailDOTcom or call her at 805-308-0858 and leave your name and how many will attend.
In closing, here’s a brilliant video which combines Pearl Jam cover of Clash classic “Know Your Rights” with cartoon of Donald Duck as a Nazi http://t.co/uvuAUVD
I’ve been keeping so busy with Ojai WordFest readings and writing workshops! Here’s an update on how it’s all going and what’s to come including information on Danika Dinsmore’s “Poetry BootCamps” scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, from 9-noon and 2-5pm. I strongly recommend that you attend one or both–they are not just for poets but for anyone who wants a jump start on creativity and some tricks for when the muse steps out of the room!
Ojai WordFest Update! I won the Ojai WordFest slam on Wednesday with my team mate Danika Dinsmore hot on my heals! The event was lots of fun and newby host Georgia Menides did great (with a little tutoring on hosting from Danika and I!) Georgia’s a natural at hosting and I hope she does more. Last night’s Living Room Style Open Mic reading at Big Buddha Lounge also went really well. Danika and I co-hosted it and we had nearly 2 dozen people in at … Read More
Jeff Veen
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Sheri Bigelow
Teru Kuwayama
Hanni Ross
Matt Mullenweg
Heather Gold
Jonathan Davis
Sujan Patel
Jane Wells
Aaron Hockley
Willo O’Brien
The Write Alley 