ACTIVE VERBS
BY TRACY SCHLAPP
A few weeks ago, my six by five-foot worktable was covered with piles of writing — all the manuscripts for the remaining weeks of the Connections Issue. The task ? Sort and pair the writing. The pleasure of fitting together the work is something I would like to savor, but time is always short, so I move intuitively. Stack and paper clip with an often-cryptic note attached. Weeks later, I find myself looking more closely and thinking, “Thanks past self, now I have to write something to connect the dots.”
The ideas and stories expressed create little microclimates within our larger theme. These are the easiest places to pull writing together — the way an idea gets stretched further by the multiple viewpoints and life experiences. There are times when I just pair two writers, imagining that they are in conversation, knowing that they will likely never meet face-to-face. On the best days when I am writing an introduction, something in my head clicks, like the satisfying snap of a Lego block and I know how to draw the map between the writers. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I initially put these pieces together weeks ago, but I was struck this week that both pieces are titled with active verbs.
Every space in prison is linked by metal — chains, shackles, bars — a sheer, ever-present weight designed to contain and separate humans. What a different perspective from the link that AbdurRashid Al’Wadud describes in his memoir Linked. The relationships extends beyond that which is bound by the prison culture. Here we read of a connection between two people after a shared trauma. And while the connection is appropriate, human, understandable — it still defies the boundary.
R. Miranda finds small rocks in the yard and polishes them to reveal their beauty. He often arrives at the workshop meeting with a small handful pulled from his pocket. It is a marvel. The act of polishing is to turn the object over and over, exploring the surface, and make it shine — an apt description for how this writer considers words. In Joined the nickelodeon machine circles memories, pulling forward childhood images of daisy chains and playing ring around the rosy until finally growing up and exchanging rings. | TDS
Beautiful: “R. Miranda finds small rocks in the yard and polishes them to reveal their beauty. He often arrives at the workshop meeting with a small handful pulled from his pocket. It is a marvel.”