| | Yes, I'm Still A Poet
I've been writing poetry for more
than 10 years. In fact I moved to San Francisco in 2002 in order to
seriously study my craft as a poetry student at the University of San
Francisco. Lately I've been concentrating on playwriting, but poetry is
very much a part of my writing. My poetics inform my playwriting:
imagery, lyricism, repetition, the way words sound.
But two nights ago I was thrilled because I actually dug out a prose poem to incorporate a version of it into American Triage. And I was very happy to incorporate a poem into my playwriting, felt like I was coming full circle or something.
I was working on a monologue for
Soraya. Lately I've been making a list of what's missing. I wonder if
this happens to all playwrights or just those like me that tend to
write out of order, meaning I don't write in a linear fashion i.e.
start the beginning, end at the ending. Instead I write a scene and
then try to determine where in the timeline of the play it is and
insert it. This means holes need to be filled, questions answered,
plotlines developed.
Tuesday night I was working on a
monologue for Soraya that delved into her relationship with her father
a bit. I had been wondering: Does she miss him? The monologue takes
place late at night, right after Lalo and the wounded Rafael leave
Lalo's bedroom to head to the church. Soraya is experiencing a bit of
insomnia and is watering a dying plant. That's when she talks about her
father's green thumb, his garden. And that's when I remembered my poem The Avocado Tree. The Avocado Tree
is a prose poem about the death of a grandfather and how the tree
seemed to mourn by not producing fruit for two years. I altered the
lines and inserted it into the play and I have to say it works.
Yeah poetry!
Page count update: 69! There's still plenty of work to do, but it's really coming along.
-M
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| | Posted 5/17/2007 7:33 AM - 60 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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