Course:Bacu's Garden
| CRWR 501P 003 |
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| Advanced Writing of Poetry |
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Nestled at the back of a tiny townhouse condo, located on a street of what is a very quiet (beautiful; albeit a little depressed) mining town, is Bacu’s Garden. This garden has a short little winding pathway surrounded by an array of vibrant flowers — peonies and snapdragons, tulips and hyacinths, wildflowers from the surrounding woods and various little figurines; tiny handprints pressed into clay disks with the date 1997 clumsily scrawled beside it. My hand prints. It signifies the summer my Bacu (my invented nickname for my grandmother) moved into that house and started, what I believe to be, the most charming garden on the planet. One of my favourite places.
Almost every summer I would spend every hour of sunlight in that garden. I swung from a hammock that was tied between two large oaks and read Anne of Green Gables for the first time, falling in love with stories. I painted t-shirts and canvases with aliens, two-headed dogs and other whimsies of childhood imaginations with my fingertips and cheap dollar store paint. It was a place where I cultivated my creativity in the restful sanctuary of the flowers with the help of my Bacu, free from the confines of school necessities. It was also the place where I was taught, by the sharp, discerning eye of my Bacu, to be critical — a skill that has helped me through many areas of my life but has almost destroyed others, namely my writing practice. “Don’t plant two purple flowers beside each other!” She would scold. Or, “Keep the crayons inside the lines!” "Don't read Captain Underpants, read Anne of Green Gables. That's a good story."
The garden was both a magical place and a constricting one. My creativity was both grown and also pruned to be confined by some other standards mysterious to me. I have many fond memories of the garden and many hurtful ones. Both inspired and influenced my creative practice today, for better or for worse. I try to keep what I believe to be helpful from my time spent in Bacu’s Garden and try to weed out the rest.