Disappearances

Disappearances and Displacement:

Writing on Marginality and Exile

Text: Carolyn Forche's Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness, 1993.

Instructor: Esther Altshul Helfgott, Ph.D. eahelfgott2@attbi.com 206-527-8875

Hugo House: Saturdays: 1-3, Oct 14, 21, 28, Nov. 4,11,18, 2000

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If you feel you are on the margins of the mainstream, exiled from the community of your nation, religion, ethnic group or birth, chances are you experience a sense of loss from your original home or come from a family of people who do. We will dip into Forche's Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness for thinking and writing about our lives in relation to disappearance and absencewhat we have in our lives now and what we are missing. This topic can take us in many directions, Apartheid, Civil Rights, Gay and Lesbian living, the Holocaust, Homelessness, Slavery, Mental and Physical Illness and Loss of limbs. Short in-class writing exercises will help generate ideas and will be useful for developing works-in-progress. Those who wish will present revised work for in-class critique.

Syllabus

Oct. 14: Introduction. Discussion: What does it mean to feel in exile, to feel absent, or as Argentinean activist, Alicia Partnoy, writes "disappeared?" In-class writing exercise: Describe a time in your life when you witnessed a disappearance or felt a loss. Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Read Forche's Introduction to Against Forgetting. 2. Read poems by Vahan Tekeyanin (The Armenian Genocide); Georg Trakl (WWI); Anna Akhmatova (Revolution and Repression in the Soviet Union). Record how each poem makes you feel. Do these poems connect to your life or to the life of someone you know or knew? Keep your writing for this class in a portfolio so you will see how much you accomplish by the end of the quarter.

Oct. 21: Discussion: What does "poetry of witness" mean? In-class writing exercise: You are three years old and a witness to your environment. What do you see, hear, taste, touch, smell? Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Read Frederico Garcia Lorca (Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939); Read Gertrude Stein, Bertolt Brecht (WWII, 1939-1945); Nelly Sachs, Paul Celan, Irena Klepfisz (The Holocaust, The Shoah 1933-1945). Find a poem that changes you. Tell why. 2. Now write your own poem, or memoir, or essay or song. Make me your audience. As you write, keep an extra piece of paper next to you. Record your bodily (including mental) sensations. These "stray" thoughts recorded while you are working on an assigned project may lead you to a more important aspect of your writing self.

Oct. 28: Discussion: What do you remember that you would rather forget? What have you forgotten that you know you must remember? Suggested Home Assignment: 1. You are in a small village. Peace lives here. So does Fulfillment. Silence thrives. So does Human Interaction. What do you make of this wonder? 2. Read poems by George Seferis (War and Dictatorship in the Mediterranean); Faiz Ahmad Faiz (Indo-Pakistani Wars); Mahmoud Darwish, Yehuda Amichai (War in the Middle East) Choose one line and one idea from each poem. Combine the lines and ideas into your own creation.

Nov. 4: Discussion: What does "on the margins" mean to you? Are you living on the margin or on the edge in some way? Is there really a center? Place your life in historical context. Describe your way of living in relation to someone else's. Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Read Pablo Neruda, Teresa de Jesus (Repression and Revolution in Latin America); Langston Hughes, Muriel Rukeyser, Jimmy Santiago Baca ( Civil rights and Civil Liberties in the United States) 2. Write about "a fighting place."

Nov. 11: Discussion: What do you remember about the place of your birth? Of your family's history? Of your first neighborhood? Make a list of people in your life. What books were read to you? Who read them? Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Read Etheridge Knight, Yusef Komunyakaa (Korea and Vietnam); Sipho Sepamla, Jeremy Cronin (Repression in Africa and the Struggle Against Apartheid) 2. Witness someone else's exile. Write what you see.

Nov. 18: Discussion: Interiority/Exteriority; Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Bei Dao, Duoduo (Revolutions and the Struggle for Democracy in China) 2. Your writing, this little piece of poem or story your mind needs to create, is the only evidence of an event you have witnessed. Who will listen to your testimony? Who will not listen? As you write, describe this event in as much detail as you can, including its social and political context, its topography and place. Share portfolios or chap books. 3. Dream-free the world. Write your dream in any form.

More Writing Ideas

1. What wars did you or people in your family fight in? What wars did they escape? Write a 250 word newspaper article or letter-to-the-editor.

2. What do you think about when you see homeless people on the street? Write 500 words of fiction.

3. You have no money and three children to raise. Their father has left and the four of you are standing in a welfare line. Write a poem.

4. Your child is gay or lesbian; you know this, but he or she has not yet told you. Write a journal entry discussing what you do or do not know about the gay and lesbian communities.

5. A friend of yours is having an operation. She will probably lose a limb. You are in the waiting room and can do nothing but write. Do.

6. All your friends, including your best friend who is a nurse, are boarding a boat to fight in the Spanish Civil War. You want to be with them but cannot. Discuss your feelings with someone else who is left behind, a stranger whom you have just met. Record the dialogue.

7. The children are leaving on trains. How do you say goodbye?

8. Write a letter to someone who has died.



	Disappearances and Displacement: Writing on Marginality and Exile Text: Carolyn Forche's Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness, 1993. Instructor: Esther Altshul Helfgott, Ph.D. eahelfgott2@attbi.com 206-527-8875 Hugo House: Saturdays: 1-3, Oct 14, 21, 28, Nov. 4,11,18, 2000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you feel you are on the margins of the mainstream, exiled from the community of your nation, religion, ethnic group or birth, chances are you experience a sense of loss from your original home or come from a family of people who do. We will dip into Forche's Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness for thinking and writing about our lives in relation to disappearance and absencewhat we have in our lives now and what we are missing. This topic can take us in many directions, Apartheid, Civil Rights, Gay and Lesbian living, the Holocaust, Homelessness, Slavery, Mental and Physical Illness and Loss of limbs. Short in-class writing exercises will help generate ideas and will be useful for developing works-in-progress. Those who wish will present revised work for in-class critique. Syllabus Oct. 14: Introduction. Discussion: What does it mean to feel in exile, to feel absent, or as Argentinean activist, Alicia Partnoy, writes "disappeared?" In-class writing exercise: Describe a time in your life when you witnessed a disappearance or felt a loss. Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Read Forche's Introduction to Against Forgetting. 2. Read poems by Vahan Tekeyanin (The Armenian Genocide); Georg Trakl (WWI); Anna Akhmatova (Revolution and Repression in the Soviet Union). Record how each poem makes you feel. Do these poems connect to your life or to the life of someone you know or knew? Keep your writing for this class in a portfolio so you will see how much you accomplish by the end of the quarter. Oct. 21: Discussion: What does "poetry of witness" mean? In-class writing exercise: You are three years old and a witness to your environment. What do you see, hear, taste, touch, smell? Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Read Frederico Garcia Lorca (Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939); Read Gertrude Stein, Bertolt Brecht (WWII, 1939-1945); Nelly Sachs, Paul Celan, Irena Klepfisz (The Holocaust, The Shoah 1933-1945). Find a poem that changes you. Tell why. 2. Now write your own poem, or memoir, or essay or song. Make me your audience. As you write, keep an extra piece of paper next to you. Record your bodily (including mental) sensations. These "stray" thoughts recorded while you are working on an assigned project may lead you to a more important aspect of your writing self. Oct. 28: Discussion: What do you remember that you would rather forget? What have you forgotten that you know you must remember? Suggested Home Assignment: 1. You are in a small village. Peace lives here. So does Fulfillment. Silence thrives. So does Human Interaction. What do you make of this wonder? 2. Read poems by George Seferis (War and Dictatorship in the Mediterranean); Faiz Ahmad Faiz (Indo-Pakistani Wars); Mahmoud Darwish, Yehuda Amichai (War in the Middle East) Choose one line and one idea from each poem. Combine the lines and ideas into your own creation. Nov. 4: Discussion: What does "on the margins" mean to you? Are you living on the margin or on the edge in some way? Is there really a center? Place your life in historical context. Describe your way of living in relation to someone else's. Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Read Pablo Neruda, Teresa de Jesus (Repression and Revolution in Latin America); Langston Hughes, Muriel Rukeyser, Jimmy Santiago Baca ( Civil rights and Civil Liberties in the United States) 2. Write about "a fighting place." Nov. 11: Discussion: What do you remember about the place of your birth? Of your family's history? Of your first neighborhood? Make a list of people in your life. What books were read to you? Who read them? Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Read Etheridge Knight, Yusef Komunyakaa (Korea and Vietnam); Sipho Sepamla, Jeremy Cronin (Repression in Africa and the Struggle Against Apartheid) 2. Witness someone else's exile. Write what you see. Nov. 18: Discussion: Interiority/Exteriority; Suggested Home Assignment: 1. Bei Dao, Duoduo (Revolutions and the Struggle for Democracy in China) 2. Your writing, this little piece of poem or story your mind needs to create, is the only evidence of an event you have witnessed. Who will listen to your testimony? Who will not listen? As you write, describe this event in as much detail as you can, including its social and political context, its topography and place. Share portfolios or chap books. 3. Dream-free the world. Write your dream in any form. More Writing Ideas 1. What wars did you or people in your family fight in? What wars did they escape? Write a 250 word newspaper article or letter-to-the-editor. 2. What do you think about when you see homeless people on the street? Write 500 words of fiction. 3. You have no money and three children to raise. Their father has left and the four of you are standing in a welfare line. Write a poem. 4. Your child is gay or lesbian; you know this, but he or she has not yet told you. Write a journal entry discussing what you do or do not know about the gay and lesbian communities. 5. A friend of yours is having an operation. She will probably lose a limb. You are in the waiting room and can do nothing but write. Do. 6. All your friends, including your best friend who is a nurse, are boarding a boat to fight in the Spanish Civil War. You want to be with them but cannot. Discuss your feelings with someone else who is left behind, a stranger whom you have just met. Record the dialogue. 7. The children are leaving on trains. How do you say goodbye? 8. Write a letter to someone who has died.