From Page to Performance

Poetry is an oral tradition from antiquity. Today we value both the word on the page and in (or on) the air. First is the writing; second, the decision of what to read and in what order; and third, the oral performance of the work. Each stage involves decisions, and each one requires a different sort of attention.

To write a poem is to activate the right hemisphere of the brain, where imagination originates and images or phrases arise, often by complete surprise. The attention required is a subtle one, a chance to be open to whatever is in the mind, beyond thinking, beneath conscious knowledge. That's why I always suggest writing by hand, not only because it's slower but also because it is a kinetic practice, involving the hand, engaging the body, and allowing time for subtler associations to emerge.

To choose and then to organize the poems into a book or series of poems to be read aloud is to operate on a more conscious level, more like editing. Each poet may go about this quite differently, but what I tend to do is to sort the poems in relation to one another to create a sensible whole. This often requires deleting, inserting, or switching things around—a process that in many respects resembles revising individual poems, which can often happen at this stage as well. I always find it exciting if, while doing this, I discover something new, as I did while organizing work for last night's reading at the Annenberg Community Beach House, when I started to see how many poems I had written about listening, which gave me a deeper understanding of how listening is as an aspect of love.


Finally, to practice reading poems aloud in advance of a public reading is not just to prepare to deliver them within the time available but also to reflect on the narrative interaction between poems. I audiotape every poem in the process of writing it, both to hear how it sounds—attending to the music, or cadence, of the poem—and also to sense how it feels to speak it. Reading the poems together, as a unit, adds another layer of complexity.

I always enjoy learning about the stories behind other poets' work. By the same token, I like to share the origin of my poems with an audience, which enlivens the experience for me as well as for the audience, so I make little notes on those pieces that have the most interesting or amusing stories behind them.

Last night, after my public reading had ended, a reporter showed up with a video camera. He explained that he was engaged in a project involving poetry in an orthodox Jewish community and asked if he might videotape me reading and talking about one of my poems. I agreed, choosing one that had some content relating to Judaism. Here is the result: https://youtu.be/PmChaefADUU

A Room of One's Own

Sitting at my desk at the Marion Davies Guest House this blustery February day, watching palm trees dance frantically in the rain and processions of waves race onto the shore, I am reminded of Virginia Woolf's 1928 essay, "A Room of One's Own." Woolf argued for the solitude that every writer needs. What made her plea so revolutionary, however, was that she was speaking as a woman writer offering a vision of creative solitude to other women who had much less of it or felt they had no right to claim it. Whether her readers had a passion for writing was only one part of the equation; the other was the essential need for independence—the sense of freedom that can only be had, paradoxically, by taking refuge in a private room with a door that can be closed, and (perish the thought) even locked.


Slightly more than halfway through my residency, with scarcely a month to go, and having spent the majority of the past five weeks writing poems in this "room of my own," I am filled with gratitude and wonder at what a difference such a space can make.

This week, while preparing for the second event of my residency, a solo reading of my chapbook-in-progress, "Fugue for a New Life," Tuesday evening, February 21, I came to realize how much I have been able to accomplish here. Of the fifteen poems I will be reading, at least half of them were either written or substantially revised during my residency. And now, in the process of sequencing them, I can see from a broader perspective where this collection is going. I knew it was a book of love poems at its core, but now I see another thread, perhaps influenced by the theme of my weekly workshop and also last month's public reading, "Poetry and the Art of Listening." That thread is listening itself—an essential aspect love, or so it seems.

So thank you, Annenberg Community Beach House, the City of Santa Monica's Cultural Affairs Department, and everyone there who has made my Writer's Residency possible, for allowing me to occupy this lovely "room of my own" for this rare and cherished period of time. I will aim to make the most of it until March 14!

From the Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Division:

If you'd like a flyer about Beach House Writer-in-Residence Dinah Berland and her activities, you can download one here. Please forward to your friends!

Where Do Poems Come From?

On the second floor of the stately Marion Davies Guest House, the door to the Artist in Residence Office generally remains closed (except for office hours, Friday, 11 am–1 pm). So what's going on in there? you might wonder.

If you had X-ray vision, you would most likely see me either scribbling away in my writing journal, drafting something new, or, later in the day, typing up that morning's draft or revising an earlier poem that has been "ripening" for a while. Most poems require a little breathing room to reveal themselves to the fullest, and returning to something drafted days or weeks ago, or even longer, tends to offer new perspectives and ideas. 

Sometimes I will pull out a poem that has been sitting in my files for so long I don't remember having written it. At best, this can be an exciting discovery, a chance to shape raw material into something new. If the poem doesn't call to me, that's OK, too. There are always others where that one came from.... Where would that be? you ask. The answer sounds too easy, but it's true: Poems can come from absolutely anywhere: a passing thought, an overheard phrase, a dream, a memory, a piece of music, something read, something noticed on the street, the ocean smashing against the shore outside my office window (yes, I do see a corner of paradise out there!)—or any combination of these. It could be an idea that arises spontaneously, a thought that has been pursuing me for days, or a phrase from an unfinished poem that suggests a new one. 

The latter bit of serendipity happened recently, on my way home from a day spent working on several things, none of which caught fire. One of these was a poem about my lifelong love of dancing. I had decided by the end of the day to try a "list poem," cataloguing the various periods when dance played a part in my life—from my first dance class as a child to the nights as a young mother many years ago, when I would habitually spend Friday nights dancing barefoot on a wood floor at Dance Home, above the Radio Shack on Santa Monica Blvd. 

One of the episodes I listed took place in my first year of college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where I was an art student and budding jazz fan. I especially enjoyed hanging out with the jazz musicians, who occasionally invited me to their jam sessions and private parties, including a memorable evening line dancing at a shack on the outskirts of town. 

As I was exiting the freeway that evening after spinning circles around that dance poem, I noticed a license-plate frame on the car immediately in front of me that said, "I Would Rather Be / Line Dancing." What's the chance of that?! I immediately realized that I needed to drop the rest of the poem and concentrate on that experience alone. "Thank you!" I said aloud to the anonymous driver I was following. How perfect, since "line dancing" is essentially what a poem does. 

So if you come to my public reading at the Beach House on Tuesday evening, February 21, you will hear me read "Line Dancing" and know exactly where that poem came from: a distant memory and a surprising encounter with a license-plate frame—because poems can come from anywhere.

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Here are the three events associated with my writer's residency. All of them are on Tuesday nights, from 6:30 to 8 pm, at the Annenberg Community Beach House, and all require RSVP. You are warmly invited to attend any or all of them!

January 31: Poetry Reading featuring Teresa Mei Chuc, Daniel Romo, and Billy Burgos, followed by a discussion on poetry and the art of listening, moderated by Dinah Berland. 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-the-art-of-listening-w-writer-in-residence-dinah-berland-guests-registration-29334659757

February 21: Dinah Berland, reading from her book-in-progress, "Fugue for a New Life" 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reading-from-fugue-for-a-new-life-with-writer-in-residence-dinah-berland-registration-30506763551

March 7: Poetry reading by the Camera Obscura Poets (world premiere)

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-camera-obscura-poets-read-with-writer-in-residence-dinah-berland-registration-30506877893

The Beach in Winter—What a Spot for a Writer!

The beach in winter is amazing! The ocean has its own steely character, deep blue with sparkling highlights; the cyclists are more dedicated; and the light—well, the slanted light over the ocean is glorious, even through scattered rainclouds.

Yesterday was my first day as Writer in Residence at the Annenberg Community Beach House. If you have never been here before, you are in for a lovely surprise, rain or shine—even without taking a dip in the pool (which is closed for the winter). Whether you are a writer, a reader, or just curious about what poets do at residencies, you are warmly invited to stop by the Marion Davies Guest House this Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and every Friday through March 10 for a conversation. You might also want to avail yourself of a docent tour of this historic house, built for the actress Marion Davies by her longtime companion, the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. 

Bring a favorite poem, and I'll show you some of mine! We can talk about any aspect of poetry that interests you, and you are welcome to ask me about my book in progress or anything else you've always wanted to know about poetry but were afraid to ask. 

Hope to see you this Friday—which is forecast to be sunny, by the way!—or any other Friday for the next eight weeks.

Cheers,
Dinah

The Annenberg Community Beach House welcomes poet Dinah Berland as incoming Writer-in-Residence (tenure: January 10 – March 14, 2017.) Berland focuses on the idea of “Poetry and the Art of Listening,” and will be presenting monthly public events at the Beach House under this theme. Her residency project is to finish work on a chapbook of poems, titled Fugue for a New Life. Berland’s monthly events are augmented with an ongoing workshop at the Camera Obscura, weekly public office hours at the Beach House (Fridays from 11am-1pm,) and regular blog postings at BeachHouseAiR.blogspot.com. The public is welcome to visit Berland during her office hours to discuss literary matters and the residency experience, or check out the blog to ask questions or leave comments online.

Dinah Berland is a widely published poet and book editor with a background in art. Her poems have appeared in more than two dozen journals, including The Antioch Review, The Iowa Review, New Letters, and Ploughshares, and are included in many anthologies. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, received an Individual Artist’s Fellowship in Poetry from the California Arts Council, and won an international poetry prize from the Atlanta Review. Her book Hours of Devotion (Schocken, 2007) is a verse adaptation of the first (1855) full-length book of Jewish prayers "written by a woman for women."

Week Four: Celebration!

Opening night is finally here! A wise mentor once told me that celebration is as important as preparation. There's always ups and down on any journey- but the fact that you've arrived at all is a fact worth celebrating! It also allows us to mark the occasion and honor the work and preparation it took to get there- important things for our self-confidence and mental well-being. And what better way to celebrate than share the product of our labors with you!

Everyone is extremely excited to get to perform We (or Us) for an audience. As we were putting the final touches on the piece over the last week, it became evident that the last missing ingredient was you. You're the real breath of life, the lightning bolt that gives energy to our creations. We can only do so much for empty chairs- it's the energy that you share with us that allows us to make the best art we can. So come share We (or Us) with us, and let's celebrate the moment and all the moments that make this life special together!