THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 31, 1994 TAG: 9408300136
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Linda McNatt
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
I'm sure my editor is groaning in agony. I write poems for him once in a while, you know. The last one was something about - well, we don't have to go into that.
But I will tell you he probably won't be happy about somebody helping to sharpen my poetry skills.
This, however, could be an opportunity I'll take advantage of.
Beginning Tuesday, Leslie Clark will be offering a poetry workshop at the Isle of Wight Arts League. Poetry, Clark tells me, is the link between the written word and visual arts.
It's a great way to stretch your imagination, build vocabulary skills and improve yourself as a writer. Besides that, you can have all kinds of fun making your own birthday cards on that machine that prints personalized greeting cards. She didn't say that. I did.
Anyway, what will they think of next? Imagine the greetings you could send. With that machine and a poetry class, the possibilities are endless.
Clark, the founder and a member of the Isle of Wight Writers' Group, has taught poetry seminars all over. She's taught creative writing at Paul D. Camp Community College, and she belongs to several professional writers' organizations.
For 23 years, she has taught English in the Newport News Public Schools. Since 1982, she's been at Warwick High School teaching English and reading. She has been a visiting poet in the Norfolk Public Schools ``Words Up'' program, and she was the coordinator and workshop presenter in the Newport News Public Schools Artistic Verses, a poetry contest based on art exhibits at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center.
But this year, Clark is on a one-year leave of absence while she pursues her own writing career and participates in the Virginia Commission of the Arts ``Artists in Education'' program, still working with school students but not on an everyday basis.
Clark tells me her passion for writing erupted when she was about 14.
``I think I wrote to deal with all of the overflowing emotions at that age,'' she said. ``I had a temper that scared me. Writing was a way to handle it all. What I would really like to do is teach writing full-time. I think you teach best what you love most.''
That's kind of a poetic statement right there, isn't it?
Most of Clark's published works has been poetry, although she has won contests for her fiction. She writes poetry under the name ``Leslie Sands,'' and her poems have appeared numerous times in ``The Poet's Domain,'' a collection of works by poets in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
``I've had poetry published more than anything else, so I guess you can say I am primarily a poet,'' Clark said.
Clark was born and grew up in Trenton, N.J. She received her bachelor's degree from Montclair State College in 1971, and in 1991 a master of arts degree in English, with a creative writing emphasis, from Old Dominion University.
At 22, she moved to Virginia when she married a man who was an engineer at Newport News Shipbuilding. It didn't take her long to realize she much preferred Virginia over New Jersey, she said, so she stayed. She is currently married to a mechanical design engineer with his own business. Clark's husband has an office on one side of the house; she has one on the other.
This year, while she's off from teaching, she said, she plans to work with the Arts in Education Program, work on a novel, continue writing poetry and do really neat things like teaching poetry for the arts league.
The poetry class is exactly the kind of thing arts league members were thinking about when the league was organized and the ``art'' in the name was made plural, said Ann Hubbard, artistic director for the community organization formed to promote and encourage the arts.
Eventually, the league would like to include not only writing but music and dance as well as the visual arts. This poetry workshop, Hubbard said, will be a first step toward that goal.
Clark said the six-week class and workshop will meet on Tuesday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. Students will become familiar with poetry terms and writing techniques, and they will read, write and critique poetry.
I told Clark that I haven't written poetry - real poetry - since I was in school. The workshop sounds like it might be fun. My editor might disagree.
If it sounds that way to you, too, call the arts league's headquarters at The Collage, 357-7707, or call Hubbard at 357-5874. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LINDA McNATT
Leslie Clark says that poetry is the link between the written word
and visual arts. It's a great way to stretch your imagination.
by CNB