Member Profile: Annie Virginia

New feature to the Writing Club.. I'm featuring one person's response on the Mondays and Fridays that prompts go out in your WC newsletter and asking them to answer two questions: Who are you and What works?. Today I featured Annie Virginia's writing. I posted her piece again at the bottom.

I've come to find out that Annie is in high school:

"Before this summer, I hadn't written in so long and now I am writing more but having prompts written by someone else is really keeping me going. I'm 17, a senior in high school, and I'm hoping to major in English and right now waiting for responses to a bunch of different schools including Sarah Lawrence and Swarthmore (both excellent schools for writing). It's good for me to know whether people appreciate my work.  I really want to be a full-time poet when I'm older and I suppose there's a bit of insecurity in me that asks, "What if (I'm not good enough)?".. and this is certainly keeping that at bay. I've gotten a blog on typepad since I've started the workshop and I've put a lot of my poetry up for people to see-- a bold move, I'd say. I'm enjoying peoples' responses and I hope you're enjoying my work as much as I'm enjoying doing it."

I asked Annie what works for her in the creative process. Her answer was as wonderful as her writing.
Oh, wow. That's sort of difficult to answer. I like to keep my writing as honest as possible. I have a well-masked dark side that I like to allow to show itself when I write. I tend to write for someone (not that I tend to tell whoever it is) and I want the big, irrational pieces of me that I keep to myself to come out with a slightly more polished gleam and since it is for someone, I try to be giving, letting all of my gentility or care sort of honor them in my words. I have a flow to my work and alliteration is my favorite devise. I wrote about my relationship with words in a college essay; do you mind if I send it to you? I'll attach it to this email and you can read it if you'd like. You might get a better answer to your question there. - Annie

Annie's Response to the Monday Prompt:

I like the way my momma made me out of iron and I burned myself to steel so I could be greater than all fiction.

I like the way God laughs at my costumed convulsions and feeds me charcoal so I'll purge this gildedsweet fantasy I've fed myself.

I like the way I was saved in a glance and not by any time-rotted Christ.

There's something in the way of the world that twisted me all up like acid trip ferriswheels and dark circus devil withdrawals.

There's something in the way you quietly notice a tear in your faded pink nightgown and don't point it out that chokes me, makes me draw up new promises of devotion I'll never keep just to stifle the wracking sobs I forbid myself to tuck into you.

There's something in the way I lie (I lie) that is more honest than the truth because it's not a lie and I'm not bitter because you saved me; I just want this bile out of my stomach.

The garden is mumbling something about being children together, kin in clovers and rust in roots. The garden is mumbling something about the state of my being, did you mean it, do you feel it, can you see it, you can smell it and always will and you can't tell your lovers that, they'll never know, never know.

The garden is mumbling something about love and words and ink and soil and the world in my own ragged hands. I like the way I taste the garden, let this acid seep into her soil, and together we wake up weak and grow astonishing.

More from Annie: Download John Gardner