I have fun responding to prompts for writing exercises, and recently I discovered the website of the non-profit organization Poet and Writer’s which provides a lot of suggestions for prompts. The prompts given are impressive. Each week three prompts are presented on the main page of the website: one for poets, another for fiction writers and the third for those writing creative non-fiction.
Poets and Writers “is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization serving creative writers.” With a premium membership (a very reasonable $75/year) it’s possible to join various online groups based on your interest. One of them that I have joined is The Time is Now: Writing Together. It meets weekly on Monday mornings and once a month on Saturday. The group is led by a staff member and consists of a welcome (often including a question related to the prompt), then the prompt with fifteen minutes to write about it quietly, and finally another 15 minutes of sharing.
On Saturday, March 28, about 8 of us attended and enjoyed exploring the prompt entitled “Color Theory.” While the prompt was designed for poets with the option of writing several short poems related to color, Nicole, who leads The Time Is Now sessions, reminded us to feel free to go in whatever direction we wanted. A brief discussion involved people responding to the question, “What color is right for you today?” and then we wrote silently for 15 minutes responding to the prompt.
I was surprised that my response was “black,” and immediately I traveled back 65 years to 316 E. 63rd Street in New York City, the home of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Nearly every student was wearing a black leotard with black tights going down to the ankle. We gathered in the main study on the first floor and most of us arrived fifteen minutes before the class. Each of us had our own ritual to help us prepare and be alert in class. I usually stretched on the floor. A friend Margarit looked in the mirror checking that her hair was neatly in place. Most of us made sure our hair was carefully in a ponytail or bun so we could whip our bodies around or do a spiral to the floor and not end up with a mouth full of hair. While we all had the same basic black uniform we managed to add a distinctive touch. Perhaps it was the neckline that we customized to flatter our body or a bright turquoise circular hair clip holding our bun in place.
That morning’s intermediate class was being taught by Martha Graham herself, the creator of the technique. Usually, class was taught by one of the company members. They were excellent teachers, making sure we were doing the combinations correctly, coaching the proper placement of our bodies, and teaching choreography from a piece of repertory. But Martha was different. She inspired and gave us images that stayed with me over the years. She could twist her body to one side and place her hands on her hip and share how she discovered her hip. We knew she was talking about how she used her hip in a new way. Martha reminded us of our uniqueness:
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. (Martha Graham)
Check out Goodreads to see more of her quotes. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/47790.Martha_Graham
Of course, there is one quote that stands out in my memory, and it isn’t in the list of quotes. As we were doing contractions on the floor, she instructed, “OK girls, air out those vaginas.”
Black is also the color I remember wearing and seeing others wear at funerals. The first funeral that I attended at age sixteen was for my grandmother. To my young mind, wearing black represented grieving and acknowledging her passing in a respectful way. The director of the funeral home where my grandmother’s service was held pinned a keriah to my father’s suit, a torn black ribbon as a symbol of grief for him to wear throughout shiva (Judaism’s 7-day period of initial mourning observed by immediate family following a death). When I was older, black was my special choice for a cocktail dress or a dressy pantsuit and I loved splurging on several Eileen Fisher black outfits that could be interchanged and coordinated in different ways. And today, even for casual clothes one can often find me in all black.
by the Rio Grande River, in Albuquerque around 2019.
Seeing something as black or white as if it were a metaphor for good or bad is not a part of my vocabulary. I see each as very positive and am fascinated by all the gradations of gray when you go from one extreme to the other. I remember exercises in art class where we made samples of these gradations not only in black and white but in many other colors.
In recent times, occasionally filmmakers will purposely decide to shoot a film, or part of a film, in black and white. An outstanding example of this was Schindler’s List. While it is mainly shot in black and white, there is a symbolic scene of a little girl in a red coat, and at the end of the film there is a transition to color and a very memorable moment showing actual Holocaust survivors and their descendants paying tribute to Oskar Schindler’s grave by placing a stone on it.
While I didn’t write this blog in fifteen minutes in the Poets and Writers’ Saturday morning session, I did get the idea for the blog. I look forward to participating in The Time is Now: Writing Together, with its thought-provoking prompts and stimulating discussions. It’s a wonderful creative way to start each week on Monday morning.