A follow-up to Colin’s promo
and a video add-on, edited by yours truly:
CREATIVE WRITING
at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco
Welcome! CW develops the art and craft of creative writing through instruction, collaboration, and respect. This blog showcases STUDENT WRITING and how to APPLY to Creative Writing.
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It’s quite simple, actually. Friday is a magical day. It’s a day to be around people you love. It’s a day to spend time with the people you really care about.
And who do you care more about then Creative Writers who have spent the last month slaving over their various 10 minute scripts?
Next Friday, April 12, in the Main Theater at SOTA, starting at 7:30 will be Playwriting Show, featuring the words and acting of SOTA’s Creative Writing department. It took a while to decide, (believe me, it was an intense battle of “play” puns), but our show will be titled Work Hard, Play Harder.
And we will play. We will play hard. Mark your calenders and prepare to get your socks knocked off so hard there’s holes in your shoes.
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National Poetry Writing Month has begun. Just sayin’.
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the sky smells pink and hard
when i walk through it in the mornings
the sulfuric dusts the dawn
a fruit-bowl
full rosy belly bent backwards
that loud gray groan inside the skin
pierced and peeling like a salty apple
swollen hot choleric
elderly clouds left over damp winds
scraggle across dimly like some
stale leftover scraps of canvas
just enough to swab up the strokes
i can hear the first few fistfuls of light
faint and wavering like timid bells
then with a clap, the sun heaves up
a heavy head
–Olivia Weaver -
We grab the black binoculars
With the thick black strap
And the book about constellations
And a beach towel
We get into the car
Sit in the leather seats,
And you drive as I gaze out the window
At the city lights
And up at the starless purple sky,
That reflects the city lights back.
You drive until the concrete road
Turns to dusty dirt
and the city fades into the purple horizon
You drive to the open countryside
The grass grows knee high
The crickets chirp
The land seems to spread out around us
For miles, and miles
And there is one tall oak tree
We put the beach towel
On the grass, under the oak tree
And you slip the thick black strap
Around my neck
You point with your figure where I should look
And you read from the book
About Orion, Camelopardalis,
Cancer, Aries, Pegasus, and Pyxis
But I don’t see the outline of great gods
Or crabs or horses
I see little white dots
I see the lights of cities on distant planets-by Josephine Weidner
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Creative Writing has a new Facebook page. We are posting blog updates, school news, writing contests, and fun local events (literary and otherwise). You don’t have to join Facebook to view our page.
So come on over, like us, visit us, and feel free to post anything of interest to the CW community on our wall.
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Pellucid winters show the raw brush,
Raw proof of an earlier time.
You wait, you wait. The chalky dust is cold.
There is no snow to take the edge
Off the dry log. You sit. The well-water
Is black, the rope is clasped
By what flowed through its fibers.
The water is black. It will not
Show you your face. It will only show
Winter, and not even snow to cover how
Dull is the ice: Reflection is the proof.
Somewhere beyond the hill where it is quiet
Is a grey ocean into which snow falls.
–Abigail Schott-Rosenfield -
You could’ve left me in the drawer
weighed down with wooden wolves and carved peace
signs
you could’ve let me lay by the bedside
my strings frayed
untying myself because I don’t know better
but you cut off my edges
tied a slipnot
and threaded your head through me
cause you feel naked now
without a noose round your neck
without me bumping against your collarbone like a
hammer on a rusty nail
You don’t take me off
except to shower and sleep
the 2 times when you’re not being a big brother
when you’re not drawn tight like piano wire
ready to hop on a bus at a phone call
with words made of thistledown
or fists made of wood
your teeth loaded
with buckshot or cottonballs
and you a shot or two or five cause you’ve got me round
your neck
cause you want a time where you aren’t worried
cause you want to be able to get a teary-eyed phone call
without seeing Katie’s grave in Technicolor
or hearing Ronnie
choking on anti-depressants
and for a few hours
you can’t answer your phone
you can’t run out the door and onto the 38
you can’t even be the life-sized teddy bear they need
and it’s bliss
that no-worries tunnel vision
but then you wake up with a hangover sitting on the
coffee table
and you run to the bathroom
and puke 7 times
you can still feel me tight on your neck
keeping time with your ragged heavy-eye breath
and you check your phone
for any missed calls
–Jules Cunningham -
SLEPT WITH A SNAKE
A snake under my covers
ate and didn’t clean—
crumbs left for me to find
one bright cold saturday—
I find her sheddings scattered
tucked inside the sheets—
sheets that are quite yellowed
from hazy grainy dreams—
she used her tongue to find me
hissing as she rose—
and when the sun fell downward
she snapped me with her jaws—
I cannot shake the feeling
of scales swift up my spine—
and soon the world is melting
in whirring wintertime—
the snow is finally coming
she cannot bask again—
no beaming sun to warm her
no bed to hold her in—
–Molly Bond -
by Noa (’16)
I have always enjoyed to dance, but I have never been a good dancer. This combination is absolutely lethal, as demonstrated by my consistent Bs in my PE dance class, taught by the wonderfully intimidating head of the Dance Department, Elvia, and her sidekick (student teacher), Bruce. I know what you’re thinking—a B is not in any way a bad grade. And yes, I may be a bit of an overachiever. But I consider these Bs, taunting me with their nimble, curvy hips (these Bs would be able to dance the Salsa) to be a mark of failure in a class in which one is seemingly graded solely on their natural ability to move their feet in complicated patterns and not trip over themselves in the process. The Dancers, with their twirling, shiny hair and ability to pull off leggings and tiny tank tops, stand at the front of the class and perform every movement with an enviable languid, “god-this-is-so-easy” grace, while I (I can’t speak for anybody else, they all seem to be good at dancing and/or not stress about it as much as I do) make awkward, robot movements in the back row. That isn’t to say that I don’t try. I try really, really hard—I even do all of the sit ups that we always do before class, instead of lying there like a floppy starfish. But for some reason, my consistent efforts always seem to manifest themselves into a “you-will-never-be-good-enough-no-matter-how-hard-you-try-just-give-up-you-failure” B, which will forever haunt me much too deeply.
Pft, easy
