Going Out Going In:
A five-day art and writing retreat for women
Connecting writing and visual art can activate what William Burroughs called “The Third Mind”— from the confluence of the two art forms, something new, or other, emerges. What might happen? In this week-long intensive, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Brucie Holler will guide and encourage women participants in their quest to create something “new,” perhaps as much third body and third spirit as third mind. Using poetry and painting, we will explore both inner and outer landscapes, ask questions and practice embracing paradox. A workshop for women who are ready to be pushed around a little by their art, moving more wholly into the creative process.
Schedule: Every day classes will be held from 9 a.m.-noon and 3 – 6 p.m. Participants are encouraged to go on walks, hikes or bike rides in the surrounding mountains during the long midday break.
Day 1:
Have fun, my dear, my dear have fun —Hafiz
Theme: Play (receiving, freedom, surrender)
Painting: Paint large, free, no brushes, collaboratively
Writing: Poetry madlibs, collaborative two-line poems, alter ego poems
Day 2:
If truth is the lure, humans are fishes —Jane Hirshfield
Theme: Truth (whatever that entails)
Painting: Emotional studies—how each relates to 9 emotions or states of being (love, anger, grief, fear, joy, depression, serenity, etc…) Create a larger version of one
Writing: Making the abstract concrete, road map poems
Evening: Meal together
Day 3:
The world offers itself to your imagination —Mary Oliver
Theme: Natural World (beauty, gratitude, reverence, survival)
Painting: Working abstractly or representationally, creating an “ode” to the
natural world – mixed media
Writing: Making bridges between outer and inner landscape, conversation with
the natural world
Day 4:
I think with my body which effervesces. —Anna Swirszczynska
Theme: Body Image (sexuality, aging, shame)
Painting: Full-size, spiritual self-portraits in afternoon session
Writing: Writing from the body, undressing the voice
Evening: Gourd Circle—a chance to share poems and other writings written outside of the workshop, or to share favorite poems by others.
Day 5:
My darlings, it’s all a circle —Maxine Kumin
Theme: Circumference (everything and in between)
Painting: Mandalas
Writing: Writing poems on our bones
Instructor Bios:
Her love poems have been read on Prairie Home Companion, and her nature poems have been published in O Magazine. No wonder poet Art Goodtimes calls Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “a chanteuse of the heart.” She served two terms as the first poet laureate for San Miguel County, Colorado, where she still leads monthly poetry readings, teaches in schools, leads writing workshops and leaves poems written on rocks around the town.
She has authored and edited 13 books, most of them poetry. The most recent collection, The Less I Hold, comes out of her poem-a-day practice, which she has been doing for over nine years. Other collections include The Miracle Already Happening, a chapbook of poems in which the Sufi mystic Rumi keeps showing up in daily life—the kindergarten classroom, the kitchen, even the Walmart parking lot. And Intimate Landscape: The Four Corners in Poetry & Photography is a collaboration with photographer Claude Steelman. Her work has also appears in journals, anthologies, on tie-dyed scarves, alleyway fences and in her children’s lunchboxes.
Rosemerry leads writing workshops for hospice, addiction recovery programs, women’s groups, schools, libraries, teachers and people who think they hate poetry. She performs with a poetry troupe (EAR), sings with a 6-woman a cappella group, and for more than 15 years she has led a poetry discussion series on contemporary American poets and international sacred voices. She is mother to Finn and Vivian, and stepmother to Shawnee. For the last six years, she and her husband were organic fruit growers, but they recently left the life of agriculture. She now works part time for Parents As Teachers. Her master’s degree in English Language & Linguistics is from University of Wisconsin—Madison. Favorite three word mantra: I’m still learning. Favorite one word mantra: Adjust.
“Wonderful, and (third) eye-opening! For me poetry has always tended to be such a personal experience; sharing it with the group facilitated by you was so intimate, and at the same time filled with such resonance … wow.” —Madeline
“I have really improved my poetry skills and felt safe and honored so it was easy to open up. I definitely got my money’s worth. ” —Lauren
Rosemerry, your balance and management, wisdom, heart and craft … whooppeee! What a gift. More! —Jenny
“Rosemerry is a fine teacher—she reaches out, she coaxes, she encourages, she listens, she shares her passion. Poetry just comes alive through her.” —Laurie Wagner Buyer, poet