Gaining A New Sense Of Confidence
Tori Lane is a local poet, writer, and artist – and is one of our former artists-in-residence at Convergence. Having already published some of her work, as well as beginning projects such as “The Fusion Project”, she was recently named the poet laureate of the city of Alexandria. In this article she wrote for us, she recounts what it was like to attend the Southampton Writer’s Conference.
by: Tori Lane
An eight week old puppy – the newest addition to Zack and I’s little family – is nipping at my socks, my second cup of coffee is oozing heat, and I have been staring out the kitchen window for a while trying to figure out how to write about one of the single most surreal, exciting and bizarre experiences of my life: the Southampton Writer’s Conference.
Each summer, the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University holds a writer’s conference in which poets, novelists, memoirists, and writers of all sorts (fiction and nonfiction) gather in beautiful Southampton, New York to learn from some of the best writers around. With Billy Collins teaching a poetry workshop, I knew I had to apply, but didn’t expect to get in. When I got the email notifying me of my acceptance, I might have made a bit of a spastic scene in Old Town Alexandria. (I suppose that is what I get for skimming my email while waiting at a crosswalk.)
This makes sense only if you know who Billy Collins is. He is former Poet Laureate of the United States and of the state of New York. He’s published a number of poetry collections and edited a handful of others. I could give a history of his artistic career, but what is more pertinent is how this famous poet relates to me at all. I am a poet because it is what I am made to be. It’s a simple fact. As much as I am a 27 year old woman with blue grey eyes and (naturally) brown hair, I am a poet. Part of what has helped me realize this is the people who have encouraged and taught me along the way. My senior year of high school, my English teacher was a man who loved poetry more than I had ever seen anyone love poetry before. His favorite poet was Billy Collins, so much of the time when he read us a poem to start class, it was a Billy Collins poem. And thus, my love of poet Billy Collins was born. I have been reading his work since then and easily naming him as one of my most influential poets – hence my spastic response to getting into a workshop where I would get to not just meet him, but experience his teaching and workshop a few poems with him and my classmates.
The first morning of the workshop, I was one of three students to be able to hand out a draft and listen to the class talk through it and give ideas for the revision process. It was terrifying. The poem I handed out that day was one that I knew had good ideas in it, but I was struggling to decide what to do with one portion of it that only partially fit the piece. I had taken it out in an earlier draft, but put it back for the workshop, hoping to get some clarity through the class discussion. That section was pointed out almost immediately by Billy Collins as unnecessary and even distracting from the whole of the piece. There were other minor ideas, but that was the main consensus of the class. It was a bizarre kind of relief to have this near mythic figure in my poetic life tell me something I already suspected, even if it was a comment about removing a chunk of a poem. It affirmed something I still questioned about myself as a poet and helped me believe differently in my ideas. My community has been very affirming of my work, especially my family and friends at Convergence, but part of me always wondered if my work could stand up to those who don’t love me as a friend and don’t necessarily have a vested interest in boosting my confidence. Billy Collins didn’t have those things. I knew he wouldn’t coddle or encourage unless he meant it. He had no reason to do otherwise. So, when I heard from him that I had some good ideas and should take out a portion of the poem that I had already been struggling with, it was like I heard not just encouragement from him, but from all my friends who had tried to encourage me before and I had only half-believed.
There are lots of fine memories from the conference, and many stories I can cherish and repeat over and over again for the rest of my life. But, the best thing given to me by my time at Stony Brook Southampton was a new sense of confidence in my work. I have a better sense of where my work is strong and where I can improve. I have a new sense of trust in my ability to judge my work and refine it. I have a new collection of resources and tools to dig into as I explore and experiment, as well as some incredibly gifted new friends whose brains I can pick. Finally, I have a new set of challenges and goals for myself in the coming months, not the least of which is to take a page from Billy Collins’ books and write some poetry about dogs.
http://www.thefusionproject.net
