Imitations, Iterations, Transformations

Also: Craft lessons from my daughter's drawings of witches, The Slowdown with Ada Limón, and Mini Butter Mochi

Hello Friends,

I’ve just finished ten days of intensive in-person teaching for UBC’s summer residency. Since coming to UBC, I’ve taught everything from asynchronous MFA courses to Zoom BFA courses to in-person minor program lectures of 175 students. This residency, however, was my first time back in a room with a small group of students—sitting in a circle of tables dragged together reading and writing and talking and breathing—since the sudden online pivot of March 2020. Preparing for the course, I was a bit nervous. Did I remember how to dress for occasions when the bottom half of my body is also visible? Should I make slides? Use the whiteboard? Where were my markers?

Pretty much from the first day, however, it just felt wonderful. I attribute this entirely to the students, who were so warm and eager to be together and willing to take risks and ask real questions. Even the fuss of figuring out plugging in laptops in a dated room with minimal outlets or the distraction of a big spider on the window felt like fun, like something we were sharing. And all my years leading workshops, of watching and listening were with me again, noticing that inhalation that signals someone has something to add, appreciating how a little nod or hand gesture can indicate ‘yes, I see you, you go next.’

I’ve found things to appreciate in each modality I’ve taught in, but I have to say that this circle of writers reading new work out loud, moving one another to sighs and tears and giggles, felt like a homecoming in the best way. It reminded me of classrooms at Marlboro, of carrying cups of coffee up the icy hill from the dining hall to settle in together. And it reminded me of the people with whom I first felt that kind of close attention as gift rather than threat: Kate, Tod, Lynn, and Caroline eighteen years ago in our MFA courses. I’d love to be in a room with all of them, but since we variously live in Vancouver, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Providence, and New York City/Marfa, I’m really freaking grateful to be reading with them via Zoom in just a few short hours. The fact that we’ll be on Zoom also means that you, wherever you are, might also be able to join us. If you’re around, we’d love to be the background to your dinner or walk or chores. Just click here to register.

TODAY! Click the image above to register!

Imitations, Iterations, Transformations

I’m currently writing about using literary models and mentor texts with students for a pedagogy project (more to come!), and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to invite students to engage with a reading practice in a way that doesn’t reinforce narratives of mastery and genius that can be so counterproductive to a writer’s growth.

What does it mean to take something as a model? When do models offer generative permissions and when do they feel like alienating exercises? What is the role of play? How do we take our writing (and ourselves) seriously and not too seriously at the same time?

With these thoughts on my mind, I was amused to stumble across some of my daughter’s sketches.¹ As I flipped through them, I saw that she had copied and recopied the cover image, each time keeping some things and changing others. In the first iteration, she’s focused on those hair ties. In the second, she’s gravitating towards those rosy cheeks and adding the moon and stars. In the third iteration, she has dropped the cheeks and hair ties and gone for a single big star.

There’s something here for thinking about creative imitations and iterations, I thought. Copying is letting her riff without thinking too much. Each time, she’s noticing something different, playing in that space of repetition and variation where poems live.

Later that day, I saw that she had shifted to another medium: the witch reappeared in watercolor paints. In this new free context, she could give the witch the traditional tall pointy hat and surround her with radiating blue and pink. The features still showed traces of the original, but more and more this painting was becoming something new.

That afternoon, she asked me to help her make gems (I drew the facets on her painted paper), which she cut out and glued to a cave she’d painted. It was only after she’d cut most of them out that I realized that the witch painting of earlier that day was on the back of the page of gems. Bye-bye witch!

But this too seemed right somehow. Copying, imitating, iterating, modifying, and then radically transforming and leaping in a new direction. These are all worth doing. And I think they’re more connected than we might give them credit for.

What role have models and imitation and iteration played in your writing practice? Hit reply and let me know.

Elsewhere: Go, Little Book

I was astonished and delighted to receive an email a few weeks ago saying that Ada Limón (next US Poetry Laureate! whose work I love to teach!) had selected a poem from my book The Silk the Moths Ignore to feature on The Slowdown Podcast.

It was another lovely surprise just a few days ago to see that Luther Hughes heard the poem and shared it as part of the July issue of Lue’s Poetry Hour.

And then Amy McDaniel emailed to tell me that Ada had heard about this poem and my book through a series of behind-the-scenes connections that started back when Amy and I recorded a podcast back in April. So much gratitude to each of these people who read and shared my work.

Mini Butter Mochi

Maybe you need a little snack to keep you writing? Let me recommend these mochi minis. They could also be regular muffin-tin-sized or in cake form. I made a cake version first, but as with brownies, the chewy caramelized edges were clearly the best part, so I turned to the mini muffin tin I’d originally bought for pre-school birthday treat purposes. And added a single raspberry to the middle of some of them.

Mini Butter Mochi

RECIPE

3 tablespoons / 42 grams unsalted butter, melted and cooled [plus a bit more for greasing tin/pan]
1.5 cups / 225 grams mochiko sweet rice flour²
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or a bit less of other salt)
1 cup / 208 grams granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 (13.5 ounce) can coconut milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F and grease your mini muffin tin (or muffin tin or 8x8 or 9x9 square or 8- or 9-inch round cake tin).

2. Whisk together mochiko, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, or a bowl you can use with a hand mixer (or your strong and dedicated whisking arm), whisk the eggs and sugar until they’re pale yellow and thick. Continue to mix while pouring in the coconut milk, then the melted butter and the vanilla. Gradually add the mochiko flour mix and whisk until completely smooth (no gluten to worry about activating).

4. Spoon into the mini muffin tin (or pour into cake pan or whatever). If you feel like it and have them handy, plop and submerge a single raspberry (or other small fruit or fruit piece) in the center of each/some.

5. Bake for about 30 minutes for mini, maybe 45 for regular muffins, and up to 60 or a little more for a cake. You might have different degrees of chewy/squishy, but as far as my kids and I are concerned, these are all delicious states of mochi cake. Look for caramelized edges and a crackly top.

6. Take these little guys outside somewhere and eat them while you read or write a poem. Maybe drink an iced matcha latte or something fancy and bubbly. It’s summer.

with love,

Bronwen

PS: I can’t always match my knitting to my surroundings, but when I can, it makes me happy. This is Freia Handpaints in the “lichen” colorway paired with the view from a writing retreat rental deck on Pender Island.

1. The little witch pad must have come from trick-or-treating, I’m guessing?

2. This needs to be sweet rice flour, not just rice flour, to get the gooey mochi center thing happening. (Recipe is a riff on this NY Times one). Speaking of riffing and inventing. . .

This brand seems pretty easy to track down.