Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, January 5: ysabetwordsmith

Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, January 5

This is an advance announcement for the January 5, 2010 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "hard science fiction." (Hard science fiction places science at the center of attention, and it refrains from violating known scientific parameters; read more here.) I'll be soliciting ideas for scientists, heroic theorists, smart women, inventions, sciences, things to which science can be done, inexplicable gadgets, scientific mishaps, situations in which science saves the day, situations in which science bites someone on the ass, scientific plot twists, settings in which science takes place, settings created by science, and poetic forms in particular.

I decided to do "hard science fiction" as a theme because I was annoyed at someone making disparaging remarks about the amount and quality of hard SF written by women. Poke a sexist in the eye: give me hard science prompts.

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.

Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.

I'm going to host a Poetry Fishbowl on my blog on Tuesday, January 5. I'll be soliciting ideas for thematic characters, objects, plots, settings, and poetic forms in particular. Chances are I'll spend a good chunk of the day, from afternoon to evening or more, alternating between this site and doing stuff offline so my back doesn't weld itself to the chair. I will post at least one of the resulting fishbowl poems on the blog for everyone to enjoy, and an extra one if there's at least one new prompter or donor. The rest will be available for audience members to buy, and whatever's left over will go into my archive for magazine submission.

If you enjoy my poetry -- or if you just love poetry in general, or want to promote interest in hard science fiction and the sciences -- please mark the fishbowl date on your calendar. Drop by and give me some ideas, comment on the posted poetry, encourage people to come look, whatever tickles your fancy. I hope to see you then!

haikujaguar

December 29 2009, 16:59:59 UTC 11 years ago

New comment

Did you read

mevennen's recent post about women writers in SF/F? She made a comment about women and hard SF in the comments, though I didn't follow that thread.

Hmm...

ysabetwordsmith

December 29 2009, 17:39:09 UTC 11 years ago

... I've read it now, or at least the first several paragraphs. It didn't hold my interest for long.

I'm familiar with what is sometimes called the "Chix'n'Fix" (women writers, from "Chicks and Fiction") panel, but since I'm a gender studies scholar, I like doing those panels. The problem with saying, "Oh, we don't care what the boys think" is that, if you take your eyes off them, they frequently take the opportunity to rob you of your rights. There are great women writers, and there always have been: the novel sometimes cited as the beginning of science fiction or horror, Frankenstein, was written by a woman, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. But if folks don't keep a sharp eye on the references, women writers -- like women scientists and women in every other branch of history -- tend to get left out, and then young people don't learn about them, which is not good for girls or boys. Sexism, like other isms, flourishes when not weeded vigorously.

So I'll keep doing those panels, because I enjoy them and I know why they're important. People who don't like them can do something else. And I'll keep writing, including my periodic forays into hard science fiction, because there are some cool stories in there and they don't check my chromosomes before they start bouncing all over my brain.

Re: Hmm...

December 29 2009, 17:40:54 UTC 11 years ago

Well, I think her point is not that we should stop writing what we want to write, or stop keeping an eye on men; her point is that women don't support one another and are more likely to force each other into gutters and ghettos than men these days.

December 29 2009, 17:45:18 UTC 11 years ago

Okay, I can agree that women sometimes oppress each other. (I'm a feminist, but much of the feminist movement is full of women I think are kind of nutty.) Still, I think there are a lot more men oppressing women than women oppressing women.