by Writing Workshops Staff
6 hours ago
Nadia Bongo can tell you the exact sentence that stopped her cold. It comes from a Maupassant story: fields so thick with poppies that they looked as if soaked in blood. Poppies and blood, set against each other, and something in the collision goes off. That collision is also what happens inside a good collage, and it is the engine of Collage to Poem: A Generative 5-Week Poetry Workshop from Visual Assemblage, which Nadia begins teaching on Zoom this November.
Nadia is a teaching artist and translator with a PhD in French Language and Literature from Aix-Marseille Université, a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship, and poems and photographs published in Apex, Solstice, Blue Mesa Review, and elsewhere. Her method starts from a conviction she arrived at the hard way, after workshops that wanted her writing to look like everyone else's: a poet's inclinations deserve respect, not correction.
Each week at WritingWorkshops.com, the official education partner of Electric Literature, you will study collages by Lorna Simpson, Hannah Höch, and Joseph Cornell, read short poems that make surprising structural moves, and then write. You will leave with at least four new drafts, one polished poem you read aloud to the group, and a repeatable method for building unexpected and extended metaphors out of images when language alone will not start you.
Here is our Meet the Teaching Artist Interview with Nadia:
Writing Workshops: Hi, Nadia. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Nadia Bongo: I'm Nadia. I'm a teacher, writer, and budding artist. I am also a film buff and horror movie fan. I have lived on three different continents so far…I love books and traveling. Lately, I'd love to visit Japan, especially Kyoto, partly because of my latest reads and movie watches. Some of my favorite cities are Dakar (Senegal) and London (UK). My last visits date from more than a decade ago.
Writing Workshops: What's the thing you wish someone had taught you earlier in your writing life, and how does this class address that?
Nadia Bongo: I wish someone had told me to respect my writing inclinations. I attended certain workshops where people had a specific idea of how and what people should write about. Changing to fit similar standards impoverishes our writing, ways of seeing, and thinking. Thanks to Craft In The Real World by Matthew Salesses, I realized that I didn't have to fit in. Writing based on collages allows writers to respect their inclination. That practice really helped me and my students.
Writing Workshops: If a student walks away from this class with one skill or shift in their writing they didn't have before, what is it?
Nadia Bongo: Students should walk away from my class with a firmer grasp on how to structure a poem, and how to create unexpected and extended metaphors. Thanks to collage, crafting a piece happens more organically through images and connections. Finally, examples from famous poets will help when it comes to structure, among other things.
"Changing to fit similar standards impoverishes our writing, ways of seeing, and thinking."
Writing Workshops: What's the last sentence you read that made you stop and reread it? Type it out for us.
Nadia Bongo: "Here and there were fields so thick with poppies that they looked as if soaked in blood." It's from a Maupassant short story, La Maison Tellier. The combination of poppies and blood struck me; it was so unexpected.
Writing Workshops: Describe a moment in a workshop, one you were teaching or one you took as a student, where something clicked for someone. What happened?
Nadia Bongo: During an online workshop a few years ago, the instructor pointed out how repetitions worked in a poem. The Zoom remained quiet for fifteen seconds. Then, one woman said: "I've always been told that repetitions are bad. Now, I realize that I can use them, as long as each brings something new." After her intervention, it felt like the whole class emitted a sigh of relief.
Writing Workshops: What's a craft move you're slightly obsessed with right now? Not a big concept, a small and specific technique.
Nadia Bongo: Last year, I picked up Ilya Kaminsky's book on translation: The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry. He mentions all these poets around the world who have used this famous sentence structure from Ecclesiastes: "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal,[...]" I already knew those verses, but they became alive again. I loved the parallelisms and the oppositions. I used that structure in a poem that is upcoming in Abstract Magazine.
Spend five Sundays learning how structure and image can crack a poem open.
Enroll in Collage to Poem →Writing Workshops: What's a book you press into people's hands that has nothing to do with writing craft?
Nadia Bongo: Recently, I read Swallowing Clouds by Matthew Zee. It's a nonfiction book about Chinese cuisine, culture, and characters. The book is enchanting, unpretentious, and at times, mouthwatering. Although it has nothing to do with craft, parts of me understood this book as poetry.
Writing Workshops: What's the worst writing advice that sounds smart?
Nadia Bongo: The worst writing advice that sounds smart is to tell it all. Tell it all and "tell all the truth" are not the same thing.
Writing Workshops: Finish this sentence: "Most writing classes won't tell you this, but..."
Nadia Bongo: You can write a humorous text about your grief.
"Most writing classes won't tell you this, but you can write a humorous text about your grief."
Writing Workshops: Who was your first literary crush?
Nadia Bongo: My first literary crush was Rimbaud.
Writing Workshops: What's your teaching vibe, in one sentence, not a paragraph?
Nadia Bongo: "We're going to work hard, yet it'll feel playful and relaxed."
Writing Workshops: What would your students be surprised to learn about you?
Nadia Bongo: Some of my students would be surprised to learn that my English is mainly self-taught. Translating poetry has helped me a lot.
Nadia learned English largely on her own, much of it by translating poems from one language into another, which may be part of why she pays such close attention to what an image can carry across a gap. That is the promise of this workshop: a way to keep writing when words alone will not start you. Bring your own collages or work from the ones she brings. Five Sundays, at least four new drafts, and one poem you will be glad to read aloud.
Class begins Sunday, November 8. Bring your scissors, your inclinations, and a willingness to surprise yourself.
Save Your Seat in Collage to Poem →WritingWorkshops.com is an independent, artist-run creative writing school and the official education partner of Electric Literature. Since 2016, we've helped writers strengthen their voice, develop a greater understanding of craft, and forge a path to publication.
