FALL WOOD (a poem), October, 2019

                                    FALL WOOD



Scuffling through dried leaves
I think of slurping hot soups
Turnip chunks, ‘shrooms, Swiss chard
Spaghetti
A table made of barn wood.                                                                     

Passing a young white pine
A smatter of snagged leaves
on limbs and needles:
Red maple, cinnamon oak, 
Golden birch, crimson sumac.
Three years from cutting.
I think of Christmas.

I am a Jew, but the thought was instant 
How could it not?
Were this the Bible would I have shared
Paul’s experience?

I heard my name.
Beyond that pine trills Hunter Brook.
I looked.
Come here.
Listen. 
Stroll along. 
Listen.

Stones there once not there not now.
Small steps.
Balancing.
I never walked with my arms out
To my sides
Before. 

Rocks convert
Pools deepen
Lanes clog with leaves
The words change.
Listen.
It’s what I have to say.

Sit this rock 
Slippery with moss.
Water lapping.
Cut banks and overhangs. 
Fractured rocks.
Tossed and twisted limbs. 

No Paul
Or the book that started it all.

Now be still
And I was still.

When cold seeps in
I wander home
Having heard something 
I may hear again
When I dream.



October, 2019

FALL WOOD - october, 2019

October 6, 2019

                                  FALL WOOD

I don’t know how it happened, but it has happened. To us. We had nothing to do with it. Evolution has played a dirty trick on us sentient beings (the ones on two legs with opposable thumbs and a smattering of Neanderthal genes). She has reversed the natural order on a whim. When we’re young, time seems endless. It is endless. Was endless. What did we know? Now, someone please explain to me in detail the point of speeding it up as we grow older? You can’t. No point. Absolutely arbitrary. Mean spirited. But there it is. Time rockets by, like you’re always rushing through the subway station, up and down, people jigging, jogging, pushing for the train, rushing, running, and there it goes, a cannon ball just out of sprint range. You’ve been butt-ended, but, you know, keep on keepin’ on ‘cause y’gotta get there, right? That’s how fast time seems to go when you know better. Wasn’t it just April? Where have I been? What the hell just happened? Did I cross the finish line? I won? Really?

That’s what it feels like.

Hunting season was what started all this because suddenly it’s October and the firebushes are bright red. The trees aren’t all bare, but soon to be and bare enough to catch sight of the creatures that live here with us, their terms, not ours. I haven’t seen the bear lately, although enough sign tells me he’s back there, but dozens of wild turkey, mostly small flocks and some singles, with those tiny heads and long, stringy beards, and a few mornings ago, an eight-point buck, a six pointer, and a large spike were eating granny apples under the tree out back our house, not thirty yards, mystical creatures with racks grown graceful, even whimsical, yet with surprising heft. Rut was still a few days away. Wind whispered over the leaves. Some skittered. That sight! Imagine holding a rock from another solar system in your hands. Imagine swimming in the open sea with a white whale. Imagine watching the one you love undress in moonlight. 

Even More Words for the Workshop, 2019

          Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

      Writing in the Woods

    

"Stephen's writing is pure wisdom. Listen to him closely," Charles Irving Beale, Film Maker

"I had the honor of taking a writing workshop with the talented novelist and screenplay writer, Stephen H. Foreman, two years ago in the lovely Catskills. Stephen offered a perfect balance of writing instruction, shared work in a positive and encouraging environment, personalized attention, and time for writing and reflection. The participants had the opportunity to learn from the instructor and from each other in a relaxed, beautiful setting. An invigorating blend conducive to inspiration!" Carol Allen, Poet


"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God", Gospel of Saint John


Welcome to the Third Annual Spruceton Inn’s Writers Workshop, nestled into the Spruceton Valley, hidden within the Catskill Mountains. 


What do I want from you? To write fiercely and honestly. To love words as the tools that tell your tale. To dig so deeply you are stunned at what you find, yet that is the only way you and you alone can tell that tale because it is a tale like no one else’s. Because It Is Yours.


What will you get from me? I bring you the lifetime of a free-lance writer and adventurer brimming with experience in the world writ large. I bring you the eyes of a creator, a scholar, and a critic, reader of some zillion or so books, decades of teaching experience – this country and others, college grads and undergrads, street people, high school kids, at-risk kids and prison inmates, ex-cons in halfway houses, hungry screenwriters, poetry in elementary schools, elderly memoirists, snazzy writers’ conferences…And now you. 

Trust me on this one: Wherever you are in your writing life, I have been there.


I’ve hugged Jane Fonda and shaken hands with Muhammad Ali. I survived the wilds of Alaska, the back-country desert of the Superstition Wilderness, and the mountain rainforests of Dominica, and and and…I’ve been a social worker. I’ve been a United States Marine. I’ve worked in the White House. I am at your disposal. Pick my brain. See what’s in there. Maybe something you can use. Sometimes even I’m surprised.

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL: NEVER give anyone an excuse to stop reading.


METHOD AND PHILOSOPHY


Your work is your work. It’s not my work. This is not Hollywood. Nobody’s gonna force an opinion down your throat or fire you or pay you lots of money so doing what you don’t want to do doesn’t hurt as much. I attempt to see what the writer means to do, and then I try to help that writer do it. I offer incisive, thorough, yet gentle reasoning. We disagree? OK.  You’re the boss. We’ll put our heads together to get the words where you want them.


Experience has shown me that dogmatism starts wars and breeds mediocrity. Yes, of course, there are creative ways to make a                    tone-deaf line sing. Good technique alerts you to these things. Better technique alerts you to more. You test them out, and, if they don’t work, you go beyond them. So, how do you learn technique? I got it by osmosis, by reading. 


ONE MORE RULE: Read. A lot. Read more. Read what you want to write and then read everything else.  Fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, newspapers, billboards, labels, stop signs, parking tickets, graffiti, faces. Go large. Range wide. Cross reference. Peer under rocks. Let all this seep into your bloodstream until it becomes a permanent part of the flow. Nothing is unimportant.


There are “How To” books at Barnes & Noble, and you’re welcome to them. You’re bound to pick up something useful. All I’m saying is, I didn’t.


BEFORE YOU GET HERE 

Write a brief essay, 400 - 500 words, on a single theme, for example, a near death experience; what it feels like to be in debt; what made you want to write; when did you become a writer. Do you deserve to be a writer? Why are you a writer, anyway? And, while we’re at it, who are you, and why are you here? Take that metaphysically if that’s your bent. How about a great joy, a first kiss? What intrigues you, entrances you, haunts you, frightens you, ignites the fire? A book or books that have been with you all your life, and what about them? Mine?  Bambi by Felix Salton, A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean, Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.


Now, e-mail a copy to me and to everyone else on the list a few days before you arrive. Give us all time to read it. Everybody reads everybody else. Everybody critiques everybody else. You probably have a program that enables you to type critiques and comments on the manuscript in another color. Print them out. First thing bring them to the table and let’s see what each of you did. Each participant gets to keep all the critiques of their work. Burn them. Save them. Print on the other side. Tuck them away. Yours forever.

info@sprucetoninncom
September 22-24

More Words for the Workshop

THIRD ANNUAL SPRUCETON INN WRITERS WORKSHOP AND                                     RETREAT   
          

           Words from the heart – Writing from the Inside Out


September 22 – September 24

Spruceton Valley, tucked away in the heart of the Northern Catskills.


A time and place to reflect and find your story.


CONTACT: 

HTTPS://WWW.SPRUCETONINN.COM/WORKSHOPS-RETREATS


Experience has shown me that dogmatism starts wars and breeds mediocrity. Yes, of course, there are creative ways to make a tone-deaf line sing. Good technique alerts you to these things. Better technique alerts you to more. You test them out, and, if they don’t work, you go beyond them. So, how do you learn technique? I got it by osmosis, by reading. 


My advice? Read. A lot. Read more. Read what you want to write and then read everything else.  Fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, newspapers, billboards, labels, stop signs, parking tickets, graffiti, faces. Go large. Range wide. Cross reference. Peer under rocks. Let all this seep into your bloodstream until it becomes a permanent part of the flow. Nothing is unimportant.

So, come, write, reflect, and we’ll talk.

More Words for the Workshop

THIRD ANNUAL SPRUCETON INN WRITERS WORKSHOP AND                                     RETREAT   
          

           Words from the heart – Writing from the Inside Out

September 22 – September 24

Spruceton Valley, tucked away in the heart of the Northern Catskills.

A time and place to reflect and find your story.

CONTACT:

HTTPS://WWW.SPRUCETONINN.COM/WORKSHOPS-RETREATS

You will spend three days in the most peaceful place on this earth. It will be a time to write, and a time to reflect. Of course, we will read your work and talk about it. I look to see what you are trying to do, and then I do my best to help you do it. What I really want to do is enhance the way you see. For me, that is the key to good writing – the ability to see things that others do not. Where others see a forest, you see trees. Where others see trees, you see a tree. When you see a tree, you see an entire network of life you never knew existed, from way underneath the ground on up.

I am also in love with words. I believe words used as only you can use them become magical incantations that bring entire worlds into existence. 

What do I want from you? To write fiercely and honestly. To love words as the tools that tell your tale. To dig so deeply you are stunned at what you find, yet that is the only the way you and you alone can tell that tale because it is a tale like no one else. Because It Is Yours.

What will you get from me? I bring you the lifetime of a writer and adventurer brimming with experience in the world writ large. I bring you the eyes of a creator, a scholar, and a critic, reader of some zillion or so books, decades of teaching experience – this country and others, college grads and undergrads, street people, high school kids, at-risk kids and prison inmates, ex-cons in halfway houses, hungry screenwriters, poetry in elementary schools, elderly memoirists, snazzy writers’ conferences…And now you. 

I’ve hugged Jane Fonda and shaken hands with Muhammad Ali. I survived the wilds of Alaska, the back-country desert of the Superstition Wilderness, and the mountain rainforests of Dominica, and and and…I’ve been a social worker. I’ve been a United States Marine. I’ve worked in the White House. I’ve taught on a college campus and a maximum-security prison, at risk kids and the homeless. I am at your disposal. Pick my brain. See what’s in there. Maybe something you can use. Sometimes even I’m surprised.

Third Annual Spruceton Inn Writers Workshop and Retreat

Here's what I find difficult to tolerate: bad spelling, incorrect grammar, lousy punctuation. Your words are your tools. You want them sharp and firing smoothly. Otherwise, if you're writing for publication, its a sure bet those folks won't read beyond page one. They're not looking to finish. They're looking to get grabbed. Who isn't?

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF THEM ALL: Don't give anyone n excuse to stop reading!

Words for the Workshop

Your work is your work. It's not my work. This is not Hollywood. Nobody's gonna force an opinion down your throat or fire you or pay you lots of money so doing what you don't want to do doesn't hurt as much. I attempt to see what the writer means to do, and then I try to help that writer to do it. I offer incisive, thorough, yet gentle reasoning. We disagree? You're the boss. We'll put our heads together to get your words where you want them. - Stephen