Rach's Reading Club 2024-And Beyond!

Writing Down the Bones

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is an interesting if not particularly practical collection of essays about writing in general but about poetry in particular.

Goldberg is a Jewish woman with an interest in Buddhist meditation. This informs her work. She sees writing as rather like yoga or meditation: Mental, but also physical. She recommends paying attention to physical details like the pen you are writing with as well as where you are located when you write.

She also gives some practical ideas for writing, prompts, and some ideas about how to run a writing workshop. I particularly thought a workshop she described sounded fun. It involved people writing for a period of time then reading their work without response. If you want to respond, you can in the next round of writing.

This book might be a little hard to read if it not for the fact that none of the essays lasts more than a page or two. They could almost be called meditations in themselves. It’s definitely worth reading if you have some interest in writing.