Three Things I’ve Learned From Being a Jack Straw Writer

Today I roused myself out of bed with a sore throat, cough, and runny nose (I know, a glamorous picture!) to go to Seattle’s U District for voice coaching at Jack Straw,  a great part of the experience of being a 2013 Jack Straw Writer. Along with the end of my tenure as Redmond’s Poet Laureate, I’m also coming to the end of my time as a Jack Straw Writer (by the way, applications are due soon, check it out! Even if you’re in Portland or environs! It’s worth the drive.)

In case you’re wondering, Jack Straw is this cool Seattle non-profit whose secret mission is to help artists of all types perform more effectively – coaching us for radio interviews and readings is just part of their work. And I thought I would share some of the best lessons I learned from my time.

1. Even if you think you’re a pretty good reader, there’s always something to learn. Live readings in a crowd – totally different than reading for radio, for instance – you can’t communicate via hand motion or face expression, so you really have to put more into your voice inflections, careful to enunciate or inject humor into a pause. And there’s nothing as humbling as listening to your own work recorded in your own voice in a professional studio to make you think about what you can improve.

2. Being in a group of writers who have nothing in common but wanting to support each other can be pretty powerful. I think this is part of the Jack Straw Writer magic, that you get together with writers of various ages, genres, levels of experience, schools of writing – writers you might never have met other than being “Jack Straw writers” together, and try to help and encourage each other. I certainly learned a lot from the other writers and their work. To be honest, I would probably have benefited more from this aspect if I’d been less busy with Poet Laureate stuff, but even the limited number of times I was able to hang out with my group, there was I think a spirit of generosity and goodwill that sometimes you can forget exists in the somewhat competitive and snarky world of writers (witness the latest ‘kill list’ unpleasantness or, you know, hang out at the bar at AWP).

3. Part of the job of any artist is to be able to take their work public. Dancers, visual artists, writers – we’re not always great about talking to an audience about our inspirations, our reasons and motives and visions of creation. We all have, of course, motives that might be hidden even from ourselves – but it’s part of our job to be able to communicate reasonably well the reasons we create, our goals for the creation, and maybe something that inspires the audience too, if we can. Part of this is performance – putting our work in front of different audiences and learning how to become comfortable with say, radio interview questions. Part of it is learning to articulate our real reasons for creating, which might be more difficult and probably, let’s face it, maybe more interesting to an audience that the creations themselves. If you’re serious about your art, you should put some time and effort into communicating with others about it.

A bonus? Today I got to get a sneak peek at fellow Jack Straw Writer Judith Skillman’s book, Broken Lines: The Art and Craft of Poetry, with chapters on handy things like writer’s block, putting together a poetry manuscript, collaborating with other artists, and maintaining motivation. There aren’t enough practical guides like this out there for poets, so I encourage you to get your own copy here! Broken Lines – The Art & Craft of Poetry