This book contains the seeds and flowers of one type of women's culture: language. The Sandpoint Monday Writers, founded by writer Karen Seashore in the 1990's, has thrived with a series of instigators. For the last ten years, during my attendance, our prime instigator has been poet and artist, Robens Napolitan. The energy shared at the beginning of each week helps us maintain our balance. Some of us have been or are professional word crafters, some have degrees, some don't. Some...
More DescriptionThis book contains the seeds and flowers of one type of women's culture: language. The Sandpoint Monday Writers, founded by writer Karen Seashore in the 1990's, has thrived with a series of instigators. For the last ten years, during my attendance, our prime instigator has been poet and artist, Robens Napolitan. The energy shared at the beginning of each week helps us maintain our balance. Some of us have been or are professional word crafters, some have degrees, some don't. Some publish, some don't. But all of us agree that words help us shape our worlds. Our work here keeps us limber and connects our outer and inner landscapes.We meet in a quiet corner or room in a cafe every Monday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Robens brings an envelope stuffed with headlines from newspapers and magazines. She passes them around and we each select one as a prompt. The selector chooses the time, usually from six to ten minutes. Robens sets the egg timer. We free write or type with a minimum of "thinking." Some call this stream of consciousness, first thought best thought, extemporaneous, or as Natalie Goldberg described, Writing Down The Bones. Then we read our work aloud to each other. Some of these free writes are sculpted into poems. After over ten years, we authenticate our themes - and growth. Another tradition, which Robens' initiated, is to collect five words or phrases from each member, then use the resultant list as inspiration for more considered writing during the month, if we choose. As a result, you may find a curious echo effect in both verse and prose within the more crafted and edited results. We can detect from this collection the reflection of life here in this place, time, lives, and cultural spaces. If you are a visitor to Sandpoint and discover this book, or even if you have never been here, you will be anointed with the wonder we find in words: You will be Sandpointed. We hope that you spread it widely within your own community.