Saturday 1 October 2011

Specific Word

One of my students, asked to find a suitable leaf and write on it a single specific word--stubbornly concrete and particular was how one of the essays in our text put it--wrote the word "time".











Another student, after drawing that leaf from a paper bag passed around the table, said "time", hm.










He grew silent. The next five or six classmates weren't keen either. About half way around, one tossed down the bag and said let's write new words. Which we did, quicker this time.


The words became objects, in other words, that would better serve as prompts for six or seven hundred words of prose.

I drew wooden spoon. So far my essay reads my teaching practice in the spoon. It could just as easily read the open 6th-floor lounge of Lloyd Hall at the Banff Centre, already three weeks past. Time has a way, all right.

11 comments:

Brenda Schmidt said...

I bet someone wrote "bag" on a leaf, right? Right?

Gerald Hill said...

Not a bad idea, but they didn't know about the bag when they went outside to get their leaf.

Bernadette said...

Oh, that lounge!

And those photos -- the rooftop patio?

Three weeks, already?

Gerald Hill said...

Yes. Weeds run the place, which I don't mind.

Brenda Schmidt said...

Honestly, if you were a plant would you like to be called a weed?

Gerald Hill said...

Yes!

Lesley-Anne Evans said...

Ah yes, Lloyd Hall withdrawal… I feel it too. Missing the poets and the place.

Gerald Hill said...

Keep writing, that'll do it, LA.

Leona said...

Sign on the wall above my desk says "write like a weed". So there's at least one part of my life I want the weeds to run.

Gerald Hill said...

Depends on which weed doesn't it?

Lesley-Anne Evans said...

Thanks, Gerry… I am and I will…