Poemcrazy: Workshop of Wonders

by Eve Lopez

I met Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge when she visited one of my journalism classes at Chico State in California a few years back. She was small and uninhibited, and bounced around the room, her dark hair flying while she spoke of words and their importance in our lives. She was preaching to the choir, but she still grabbed our attention as she read excerpts from her book, Poemcrazy, and some pages from her journal.

She grabbed words like a child grabbing candy, calling on the students in the class to pick nouns, the names of flowers, and favorite colors. If someone yelled out, "black," she'd write that down on the chalkboard and write "white," next to it, explaining that it was important to have both extremes. Sometimes writers get caught up in only writing in a certain way: For example, poets might only write a certain type of poem—romantic, sad, or silly.

When the chalkboard was filled, she passed around a velvet pouch filled with a seemingly endless amount of "word tickets," and it was with these tickets that magic happened. She collected words from magazines, newspapers—anything on which words were written. Never forgetting necessary action words, she taped her collected words on these tickets, the kind you can get in a roll at stationery stores for raffles.

The tickets were more than just practical saving places for words; they were metaphorical, too. They were passes to wherever you wanted to go—tickets to freedom. And indeed, the subtitle to Wooldridge's book is "Freeing your Life with Words."

About half of us in that class that day bought a copy of Wooldridge's book, and I still have mine. I've used it countless times and have given copies of it to friends, both writers and non-writers, to recreate the energy and expression I found in Wooldridge's work.

Two years after meeting Wooldridge in my journalism class, I was invited by a professor to take part in a more personal workshop with the author and about a dozen other female writers who lived in our small town. Wooldridge invited us into her house and gave us tea and fruit. She encouraged us to look through her collection of postcards she'd received over the years and write about the art on the front by stealing words from the back.

The book itself is difficult to describe—part memoir and part workbook, it chronicles Wooldridge's life as a student, a writer, and a mother. It also immortalizes beautiful places and people. In every chapter, a story is told, and at the end of several chapters, there is a writing exercise. The exercises work well on your own, but are ideal to use with a group.

Poemcrazy is filled with practical lessons and advice like, "Stay up all night writing poems by candlelight so your rational self falls asleep," and "Seek out children. Jot down what they say."

One exercise is to write, "I am...", "I remember...", "I forget...", "I used to be...", and pick words out of any collection you might have to finish the thought. When you're doing this exercise with a friend or two, it's important that everyone contribute words to the pool, to write down the opposites of words, and to never forget the most important ingredient—the action words.

Once you have a "wordpool" and you're writing a poem, everything is easier. If you're stuck, you can grab one of your word tickets and write it down. In the workshops with Wooldridge, she told us not to worry about making sense. Just string the words together, and as the poem grows, the meaning will become clear. This idea is part of the movement to "reclaim" words, and the right ones just know how to find each other on the blank page.

I've personally used the exercises dozens of times, and I've used them with friends and other writers—I've not once seen them fail to bring out the most unique poetry from people.

Poemcrazy is more than just a book for novices, students, professional writers, and anyone who has any interest in the way words affect our lives. It is an experience in opening yourself up to playing with possibilities. Wooldridge believes the poems you have hidden inside will find you if you let them. From my experience using this book, I do too.

Eve Lopez is a freelance writer living in Seattle.