In-class writing exercises and weekly homework are assigned. In this workshop, participants focus on approaching their work with an editor's critical eye. Participants write in class and have weekly assignments whose purpose is to reach an artistic form using a real event as a springboard with a focus on formal verse. While investigating the process of writing a poem, students also focus on the interior of each piece, exclusive of its origins. Other than finding their poetry voices, freshening their figurative language, and sharpening their poetry imagery, students wrestle with poetry line, the use of silences in the body of a poem, and the interconnection between syntax and punctuation.
Students also explore ways in which to keep going while breaking into new voices and subject matter.
In addition to writing poems with a focus on experimental verse, the final workshop focuses on the question of what being a poet entails. From the solitary work of reading and study, to writing groups, conferences, public performance and ways of serving the poetry community, students investigate the public life of a poet. Participants are guided in collecting their poems for book-length manuscripts or chapbooks. They are taken through the steps involved in making a chapbook or preparing a book-length manuscript for submission. Class concludes with a public reading.