Following guidelines received during pre-registration, bring a cover letter addressed to a specific agent. In this workshop we will break open the language of poems and explore the terrific kinetic energy created by syntax. We will explore the effects of syntax on image, memory and emotion and how these elements manifest in our writing. This will be a fun, non-critical environment in which to write, read and play with words and language. Bring your poems in progress.
All writers welcome.
In this class we'll discuss, learn and practice a level of revision deeper than most people are used to. We'll look at such fundamental aspects of poetry as form, language and subject, talk about the line as poetry's unit of measure, and broaden our sense of form by defining prosody as a range of musical options. The prose poem has been described as a short prose piece that takes on the character of poetry through such elements as language, subject or mood. In this class we will read examples of prose poetry from different centuries and countries, and write many prose poems of our own. Authors we read together in class may include Charles Baudelaire, Walt Whitman, Paul Valery, Francis Ponge, Russell Edson, Michael Ondaatje, Franz Kafka, Robert Walser, Ernest Hemingway, Jayne Ann Phillips, Charles Simic.