A Micro-Play (responding to COVID-19) #1MPFSaw an opportunity to write and submit a 150 word micro-play responding to current events on Facebook. It's due today at 5pm (EST, I imagine) so coming right up, but you can learn more about that HERE if you want to write/send something fast. Here's the original version, a little longer than what I cut down to send them. I hope everyone is staying safe, healthy and managing okay during this wild time. Much love and goodness to you all.  Photo by Ehud Neuhaus on Unsplash Inside an apartment. ZOE and CAM, any age/race/gender, together in front of their laptops. They’re sort of talking to each other but sort of to themselves.
CAM: It’s the uncertainty more than anything, all the unknowns. ZOE: I know. CAM: How long this will go on, when we can go back to normal… ZOE: I think I’m such an introvert but then this happens and I realize how everything we do depends on being in a room with people. And you, we’ve both lost shows, but all your gigs, your income… CAM: Maybe I’ll play music again but maybe not live? ZOE: I still have a job, but the stress of moving all my classes online is… CAM: Maybe we'll live on Zoom all our lives... ZOE: And what if the internet breaks? CAM: And you’re adjunct so there’s no security. ZOE: There’s no security for anybody. CAM: You’re right…there’s no…anything... Cam gets lost, falls into skin and starts to float away, out of the chair/floor. ZOE: Cam! Don’t float away! CAM: Can’t help it... Zoe reaches up and pulls Cam down with big might, keeping Cam grounded. CAM: Whoa. Thanks Zoe. ZOE: Anytime. Cam struggles to stay on the floor and grips onto Zoe. CAM: What do we do? ZOE: Let’s. Look outside. They do. Cam opens a window as Zoe holds them down. ZOE: Look at that squirrel, what’s he burying? CAM: A walnut? ZOE: A chestnut? CAM (like a dirty teenage): Chest-nut. They both laugh. ZOE: Smells fresh. CAM: Like spring. They hold hands, watching outside. They float away, in a different way, a present way, staying here in this moment but up in the clouds too. END OF PLAY
1 Comment
a doorway a fireplace with notes inside the moment panic started a quake in my ribs the salad bar closed the drive ranting up nightly hyperventilating assignments, the project, too much caffeine heavy emotions absorbed from love nobody ever proved that cold hands mean warm heart the chill of rain a scattering tiny violets on the grass in Philadelphia it's 80 degrees bricks in the green room unveiled eons caught in the space between cracks permanent marker on my favorite pants  brick walls unveiled...Photo by Dave Webb on Unsplash I notice that what I want to post here change cyclically, seasonally, as my interests do. Normally I'd post what we did in my last Drop-In Writing Workshop today, but now I'm feeling more satisfaction letting what takes place during those events happen ephemerally in that room at The Cabin. As I read through my old notebooks more quickly these days, fragments and raw rough writings are how I'd like to spend these pages at this time. I know that could and will likely change again in the future/ I'm getting better at listening to my curiosities as they shift, instead of forcing myself to stay with one format or another because it's what I've been doing previously.  Photo by Ernest Brillo on Unsplash the stucco tall, wide, broad like desert heavy, rough, dusty salmon same as Arizona foothills surrounding that strange acreage overwhelmed with lush grass eat those boorish, massive walls mouthfuls at a time chew them up, grinding, smacking swallow inside i'm glass shards, rigid up/down giant pane, expansive sliver coated in spray paint my chest a brittle wall my shoulders, torso on one side the loud mistakes within that secret shames hiding hurt hushed on the other my face stage center sliding glass doors a place to escape At first I thought I wouldn't share these this year, but now before we get too far into 2020, here are some of my highlights from 2019. It's good to look back. Highlights:
Here are my three big goals for 2020 and 2021: 3 Big Goals for the Next Two Years:
2020 is my year of finding presence, rather than worrying over the future or running reels of the past through my brain. That's my intention, anyway...we'll see how it goes :)  A sweet waterfall and (delicious proposal site) at the top of Perseverance Trail in Juneau carefully down from rock to rock grab onto boulders hands grip sharpness a long look out the vast Pacific Morro Bay all about tourists we'd fit right in but we're the homeless kind of travelers my partner behind me his white Chevy one-ton all he touches belongs to him like me but right now I belong to the sea the rocks and otters could drift to ocean but I'm hungry don't smell good everything's sticky, ragged Shhh Shh sh the bay opens purring at me I step further down to clean dark blue find somewhere to soak and wrap up in kelp, sand sun dips past horizon tangerine sherbet weather mild fog hugs surf but I'm hungry  Photo by Luke Dahlgren on Unsplash Nyquil hit by a flood I don't miss the benzos I used to take swimming through JELLO head sucks in water wavering back and forth head filled with stupid a journey to sea bottom under a log buried I hear a beeping followed by a shimmer someone's alarm it was a car, then music, then magic like a hallucination I was here, then I wasn't snot in my nose I'm not here to impress anyone thank goodness, today I might fail right back under the covers I used to like being sick  Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash The Art of SubtractionThis Tuesday at The Cabin, we focused on creating through deleting. There is an abundance of creative material, talk and words out in the world today. Some people think there are too many words. Some artists think the best thing to do about this is take away, rather than add. We can create by subtracting, stripping down, erasing. However you feel about this, much of our work as artists and writers is about taking the parts of the world that matter to us and leaving out the rest. I'm a big fan of Austin Kleon -- his books, his weekly newsletters, his art. He's famous for his books on the creative process, like Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work and Keep Going. Before that, he came out with a book of Newspaper Blackout poetry, where he finds poems embedded in New York Times articles. We all have the same alphabet and words available to us. Now we can do something with the words someone else put down. We don't have to start with a blank canvas. I've always wanted to bring this process into a Cabin workshop and did so Tuesday. We talked about Kleon's work, I showed the above and below videos and we perused models of newspaper blackout poetry examples through this website. I only wish I had stumbled upon this video tutorial in time to share with the group: Regardless, we had Sharpies, pens and fat markers ready to go. I handed out the 20+ newspapers I'd been collecting. (Thanks to my friends, neighbors and colleagues for their contributions!) We tore through them -- mostly Idaho Statesmans but one New York Times. We focused on scanning articles as Kleon talks about, instead of reading. We put boxes around words we found, loved, and wanted to keep. Then we blacked out the rest. Before Tuesday, I'd done this in one other workshop, with 3rd and 4th graders. This process was especially useful for the students who didn't like writing. (At least, those who didn't at first.) I've found the most successful poems have more words blacked out. They transform the articles, as Kleon says. They play with them as writing partners, rather than summarizing journalism. Transforming is one way to make something new, something all your own. To steal like an artist. You can consider making copies of your own work too. Then black out, erase, cut up – choosing what few words to stand out. We spent a lot of time making blackout poetry -- a good 30 minutes. Some made a few pieces. It was a bit like working on a puzzle or a collage. I found the process very calming, also, different from the cathartic feelings I can experience when I put a lot of words on a page.  Hard working fun on a Tuesday night. Almost everyone shared one of their poems. Then we took our favorite poem, or a line we liked especially, and used that as a launching point. Writing that line on paper, we then wrote something new out of those words. Some wrote new poems, some stories, reflections. When you make newspaper blackout poetry for yourself, think about what's fun about it, what you can use from this exercise in your own work, or perhaps discover that this is your new favorite way of writing.  My poems from Tuesday:
danger crossing the latest dread bridge awaiting hope And one for Idaho's recent Election Day: High Court shout outside the government naked Maybe it would be good to combine these two. Enjoy blacking out words, erasing and deleting. Thank you for writing with me. XOXO, H the drive to your house and your door creaks i wait for you in the pregnant clouds but no hurry late night skin morning cat far into dream places i sense us together your hand my waist rising in the not too cold when I make our tea  Photo by John-Mark Smith on Unsplash leaves fell off maples i jumped in the damp and grew up into a small dog we looked at the stars who took me across country me the always new girl too many men bought me too many drinks the haunting night called me into its bars and my lungs filled with water, clutching iron he took me away in a van i discovered the weight of my cranium and feared i'd go off a cliff finding the moon, lassoing it, i saw the you glow in its spotlight and pined closer i got off the love train for a while and found my breath stuck in my sternum i stayed too too long in the bathtub i found hope in sweaters we found places speaking to us and spoke back singing i took a lot of classes i fell from security the way i wrote got faster sharper i found relief in mossy woods i felt temperatures rise in my face i looked up and saw you thanks for being t/here  Relief in mossy woods. Photo by Tuce on Unsplash New Project Survey
My amazing sister Kate Kraay and I are collaborating for the first time on a theatrical project. Well -- besides the times we performed renditions of fairy tales with our brother for our parents when we were growing up. I remember playing Gretel opposite my brother's Hansel when I was six, with Kate graciously taking on the witch's role...
Now we're a little older, devising a new play/performance/thing together and could use your help as we begin. We'll be exploring the effects of stress on the body, women's bodies in particular, in comparison with the effects of stress on our planet, stress caused by humans in particular. Your insights through the survey questions below will be most helpful in giving us more direction, context and research. 
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
You are welcome to take this survey whoever and wherever you are. Though we are most interested in responses from individuals who identify as womenx, non-binary, transgender or gender non-conforming, if you are a human who has lived in this world, we appreciate your answers. And if you know someone who may have a lot to say about these questions, do consider sharing it with them. Thank you! Learn more/respond below, save the form for later on a new page or share it using this link (https://forms.gle/8qw4ReXwR6vnYywA9). Thank you so much for your time and insights! If you have questions, feel free to reach out through my contact page. Many thanks, Heidi and Kate |
Heidi KraayProcess notes on a work in progress. This page serves to invite you into the way I work, with intermittent posts to show you the hows and whys on the whats I make, as well as prompts and ideas I bring to certain workshops. There will also be some raw, rough content found in notebooks written years ago, previously posted on: Archives
March 2020
Categories
|
RSS Feed