Take This Job and...
Falling in Love with Snežana Žabić and Paul Martínez Pompa: A Meter Cute Interview with Dawn Tefft
This week on Meter Cute, I chatted with Dawn Tefft about her latest chapbook Gosling, winner of the 2024 Rick Campbell Chapbook Award from Anhinga Press. The poems use the life of actor Ryan Gosling as a lens for understanding class in modern America. I hope you’ll give the interview a watch!
And, in my writing world: My book The Swellest Wife Anyone Ever Had was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Award. I’ll find out later in the year if I won, it really is an honor just to be nominated. Also, I did an interview with Around the Writer’s Table about my book The Swellest Wife Anyone Ever Had. I sort of black out during interviews and some talking machine takes over, so I have no idea what I said…you should watch the interview and find out!
Are you ready to do some writing? Me too!
1) Set a timer for 10 minutes. Freewrite about the first job you ever had. Define “first job” however you want, so long as you got paid in some way, it counts. Remember, keep your editor voice turned completely off. Just let those thoughts flow for the full ten minutes. If you find yourself stuck, try answering some of these questions: How old were you? Were you happy? Who did you work with? Are you still in touch with any of them? What did you get out of the job other than money? Remember, follow your brain wherever it goes. Nothing is off topic. Don’t try to control the trajectory of your thoughts too much, just flow with it.
2) Set a timer for 10 minutes. Freewrite about your current job. If you’re retired or out of work right now, write about your most recent job (or whatever you want to). Remember, keep that editor voice turned off. No topic is wrong, no words are wrong. Just let them flow. If you get stuck, try some of these questions: Is this your dream job? How long do you think you can stay here? What do you get from this job other than money? Or you can also just write “I have nothing else to write, who can write for 10 minutes?” over and over until your brain throws something else your way or the time runs out.
3) Time to en-rhythm! This is a process of reading a poem aloud in the meter you’d like to write in or moving your body in preparation for writing in a meter. Annie Finch coined the term, and I think it also works in interesting ways for writing prose as well as writing free verse. So, just give it a try and see what happens, don’t worry about the concept of meter too much, just give yourself over. Set a timer for 10 minutes. You’ll read one poem over and over for the full 10 minutes. Don’t think about the meaning of the poem too much, just let the flow of the words wash over you. You can use any metrical poem you’d like. I’m going to recommend Martín Espada’s “Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100” which I would argue is in accentual meter, with many lines that are iambic. The poem never fails to make me cry, so I think it’s a great one for en-rhythming because as you continue to read, it asks you to give yourself over to the words.
Rather move than read? It’s Eurovision season, so you know where the videos from now until May will be coming from. Today, I’m going to suggest a little 2007 nostalgia with Marija Šerifović’s “Molitva.”
or read or move to whatever you’d like, just don’t skip this step! It’s important!!!
4) Now it’s time to draft! Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write a poem, short story, or essay about whatever is on your mind. Need a little more of a prompt than that: How about writing a letter to a former boss either telling them off or telling them how much you appreciated them. You can let the editor voice come up to about a 2 or 3, but not much higher than that. Let it help you shape things a little, but don’t fret too much over individual words or anything like that yet, save that for revisions. Just keep letting those words flow!
And there you go! You’ve got a draft of something to work on revising this weekend, next week, or the 12th of Never!
Thanks for letting me stop by!