Just came across some notes I made in summer 2012 while participating in the Callaloo Writers Workshop at Brown University. Though I’ve written up my Callaloo experience here and there, I thought I’d share some of these quotes (third time’s the charm?) as Callaloo, a project of Texas A & M prepares to come to the Caribbean, Barbados to be specific in 2014.
“In each case, the poem will suggest what it wants to be” – Gregory Pardlo
“Art kind of filters history” – Ravi Howard
“If it is not difficult, if it is not uncomfortable, then there’s no work being done.” – Gregory Pardlo
“Think about how you define things in their absence” – Ravi Howard
I don’t have the exact quote but I wrote this “I like what Maaza said about loving even the characters she doesn’t like” – that’s my other workshop leader, Maaza Mengiste
I also found these two notes to self…
“I am less interested in making my characters representative and more interested in making them people; and people are not representative. They are messy and confounding.”
“What do the characters want? What are they afraid of? What’s at stake? What are the consequences of their actions? How does the language tell the story?”
Don’t forget to search quotables for more…
As with all content (words, images, other) on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C.
Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, and Oh Gad!), founder and coordinator of the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about WadadliPen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks. And remember while linking and sharing the links, referencing and excerpting, are okay, lifting content (words, images, other) from the site without asking is not cool. Respect copyright.
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