I’ve wanted community and
constructive criticism for this blog (as well as to find a new,
adapted-to-circumstances description for what I do/who I am –not so much a
“label”, as a way of identifying an occupation that fulfilled and challenged
me) so when a chance encounter led me to Vancouver’s West End Writers Club I
decided to brave my parkinsonian social phobias and attend a meeting.
Phobias and Fears:
It’s not that I am afraid to go
out or to meet people. The phobias are due to very unreliable manual
dexterity (eating brings risk of tremoring my food around, splashing my wine
unless I drink with a straw). I’m
anxious going somewhere new not knowing the likelihood of achieving my comfort
requirements on other people’s seating arrangements or of suddenly becoming so
fatigued that I must lie down on their floor, preferably carpeted. The latter
often includes yoga poses…
In this context my fears centred
on the impossibility of holding my papers while reading (my
friend Crystal stepped in and performed page turning duties) and the possibility of my voice weakening to inaudibility.
The latter is a PD symptom I rarely experience and anyone who knows me; knows I
can talk like a teacher when required!
And I had wanted to have a sense of the group dynamics before reading my own writing.
The reading (prep):
We arrived early so as to be 1st on the reading list while I’m freshest
and to arrange our chairs of choice with a suitable small table for supporting
the papers. I also brought along my no-spill water cup with lid and straw so as
to avoid swallowing my meds dry like I’d done the first meeting.
The reading:
I didn’t manage my best ever
radio/stage/teacher voice but I wasn’t a mumbler either.
I knew from the previous meeting,
when I had not read, that critiques here work much as they had back in art
school at Concordia … though more orderly, strict turn-taking without the
opening to second the opinion of another even after they had finished. (Getting
the picture, I promised to follow
protocol at subsequent
meetings).
(Later on at my second meeting of
listening and not reading I realized how at a disadvantage I am,
never having studied creative writing and thus not being versed in the
technique and vocabulary of literary critique.)
Many of the comments on my work
were helpful and positive. One important issue that arose is how much you can expect the reader to know, to be able to
deduce, or at least to google,
rather than drowning short works in notes. Explaining everything defeats the
purpose of creative writing IMO. And having lived so long in multilingual
communities I had forgotten what it is like to speak only one language, or to
not speak the other ones that I do. And then there’s the whole internet
communication protocol… IMO for example. IIWII wasn’t immediately obvious to me
until one day I heard my nephew state: “it is what it is…”.
The Reading (content):
The first part was about Senegal:
3 very short Haiku-like descriptive glimpses and a very short fiction (my only
fiction writing ever!).
After the critique
I realized that some context was necessary…many people don’t know
where Sénégal is - I had had only a vague idea when I was first invited go
to Sénégal to work on a web fiction project, Dakar
Web.
Sénégal: situated on the
western-most part of Africa, at the lower limit, for now, of the Sahara,
bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, Mauritania to the north, Mali
to the east, the Guineas (Conakry and Bissau) to the south, and awkwardly
pierced in the middle by The Gambia. It is mostly semi-desert with a
few fertile deltas. It was a French colony. and is currently democratic
by African standards, safe to travel and for the most
part, populated by welcoming, tolerant, Muslims.
During the 8 years or so I
spent in Sénégal, l lived and worked primarily in the capital, Dakar, and
latterly in Saint Louis, the former capital of colonial French West Africa. I
took many photos and wrote quite a lot there, work permitting. Here are just a
few examples.
Glimpses:
The
Saint Louis sidewalk
worn
by the wind and dirty bare talibé1 feet
reveals
its heart of seashells
(note: 1. talibé are young boys who live with, and study the Koran under, a Marabout – a religious leader)
***
tumbleweed hair cast from my comb
with breadcrumbs and cockroach wings
to fly away fly away fly away home
(This
was a small part - 1 of 7 poems written on the walls - of my art exhibition at
the Canadian Embassy in Dakar which also included photos, Wolof proverbs, a
video and an audio piece. Toubaab! explored my experience of being a
visible minority, seeking to integrate into a Muslim, French-speaking, African
country).
***
wind
in the coconut fronds and swooping bats
sip
sip sip drinking
as
skipping stones in the Flamingo swimming
pool
***
small coins
His saintly nails, skin of his fingers cracked from years of 5-times daily absolutions, grate and caress along the skin where the boubou1 has slipped from my shoulder. They are urgent left-hand fingers. Though they must not hold me, I cannot elude their touch.
We move together through the streets of Medina, his prayers calling for alms from the faithful. Small coins rhythming our progress.
I stop us at cars in traffic. My eyes full of their gold and brand new boubous, suits and shiny ties. He asks for nothing more than a few small coins.
Our rhythm is his, not mine.
Though sometimes all but that shoulder moves in a dance.
The mbalax2 is danced in the pelvis. I’ve done it all my life. I don’t need my shoulder.
Small coins rhythming my thrusts
If he rests, I’m all alone. And I take the corner of the pagne3 I’ve worn for 3 rains and suck on it. I know I should not drag the dirt of the street up into my mouth nor the fabric away from its modest place. I know that I should not but no one tells me not to. They don’t really see me because I am but the eyes of my blind uncle.
--
Notes:
1. boubou a generic term used in West Africa for
non-western clothing usually consisting of draw string pants (men), a sarong
(women) and a simple top or an elaborately embroidered 4 metre by 1.5 metre
piece of fabric folded in half with an opening for the head and mostly unsewn
sides. Prices would range from the simplest (a few $) to $500 or more.
2. mbalax is the name of specifically Senegalese pop music and
accompanying form of dance
3. pagne a simple sarong
And then I read frozen wild-berry Whistler,
from cbc’s Canada Writes Hyperlocal competition. I have revision to do on that
one so I’ll post it later….
