Hosted by the Queen’s Creative Writing Club, Jason Heroux, a talented Kingston-based poet and novelist offered a helpful writing workshop, teaching eager minds about the truth behind effective writing as a hobby and career opportunities it entails.
Jason outlined many thought provoking points about poetry and how he uses it to illustrate questions in his head, rather than to come up with answers.
Anyone can write a poem and it can be as easy as personifying a concrete object or flipping ideas around to gain a fresh, new perspective on a concept. For example, Jason often took simple ideas like “getting lost in a forest” and flipping it around so that the “forest gets lost in you” and would go on from there.
The poems that resonate are the ones that make readers feel emotional and would stir up questions. Often times, one can get so caught up with writing everything that comes to mind that they can forget that effective poetry is concise. The less words that are used, the more power they hold. This technique can be used when trying to conclude a poem as well. Jason beautifully stated that like hair, you can cut off a bit of the length to revitalize the poem and create depth.
Everyone writes for a different purpose, whether it be for a prospective career path or for therapeutic reasons. Jason writes in order to let go of ideas so he can move onto the next project. He states that if you ever wanted to try publishing your poems and are faced by rejection, it is important to remember that the publisher is rejecting the poem and not you.
Before you send out your poem, it can be considered a part of you but if it gets rejected, that would objectify those thoughts and help you develop thicker skin as well as a knack for letting go. Often times, writers have other side jobs to have a more stable flow of income so do not feel pressured to completely commit to writing.
Jason Heroux is coming out with a new collection of poems next Spring but in the meantime, you can indulge in his published works such as Memoirs of an Alias, Emergency Hallelujah and Natural Capital, which you can check out at Stauffer Library.
Queen’s Creative Writing Club plans to hold many more workshops in the future and is a fun, safe space for members to come together and share ideas, work on writing prompts and to socialize. They meet twice a month on Wednesdays in Room 351 at the JDUC from 5:30 – 6:30 pm. The next meeting will be held on October 14, 2015.
Happy writing!