Word After Word

Take a Risk and Learn How To Dance Sober

April 24th, 2008 | Category: Teaching "The Practice Of Creative Writing", For Hope Students, Writing

The posters are all over campus. It’s a boy-man in a jester suit, on bleachers, half-dancing, sort of frolicking. He looks sober. If insane is sober.

I get the point. The posters are supposed to help the students not drink too much.  But each time I see one I think this is like writing by hand! this is just like writing by hand! When I write by hand I feel like this bumbling joker. I feel hideous and slow and standout-ish, in a bad way. It’s horrible. It’s soo horrible. Writing by hand is dancing sober.

I told a friend of mine, a poet, a great poet, how my students write by hand. I was bragging. He gave me the blankest look. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “We all do it. Write by hand.” I was crowing. He stared and stared at me. It was as if I’d said “My students write using words, isn’t that so inventive and cool? Words!”

Poets. They are dancing sober all the time.  Thank god for poetry.

3 Comments so far

  1. Audrey April 24th, 2008 5:40 pm

    remember when you made us do the flamenco in class?

    and you had this dancing metaphor: you are dancing and you realize that you are all over the place. you look ridiculous. you don’t know what to do. so you start small. you bob your head. you tap your foot. move your shoulders front and back. add hip movement to that. next thing you know - you are dancing! and you look cool. and anytime you start flailing, you can go back to these tiny movements.

    one night, at parrots, everyone was crowded around the dance floor watching someone. when i pushed my way through, i saw phil waalkes dancing, taking up the entire dance floor by himself. he was skanking and head-banging and grinding all at once. he had made this space for himself and now he was rocking out. we felt like we should stop him, but that would have been like waking a sleepwalker. instead we watched until he just kind of wandered off of the floor and into the bathroom.

  2. admin April 25th, 2008 3:43 pm

    You saw Phil Waalkes DANCING? Wow.
    So, it sounds like he was doing the method, completely. It is like sleep walking, writing, isn’t it? is that what you are saying?

    I am so happy you told me this story.

  3. Glenn April 25th, 2008 10:27 pm

    Here is a photograph of Phil Waalkes dancing:

    http://audreykayyoung.shutterfly.com/action/slideshow?caid=67b0de21b346396ca4b3&a=67b0de21b346396ca4b3&auto=0&m=1&d=1209176785758

    Enjoy.

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