Fine Arts Work Center In Provincetown

24Pearlstreet Workshops

Matthew Olzmann Surprise and Revelation: Building and Overthrowing Expectations in a Poem Poetry May 1 to May 5, 2017 Tuition: $500 Class Size: 12 Session: spring Level: 1 week asynchronous workshop

How is surprise created? Often, it’s an effect of poetic structure: the order in which information is presented to the reader. One piece of information introduces a set of assumptions or possibilities, and the next piece of information calls those assumptions or possibilities into question. In this class, we’ll examine how poems—from beginning to end—constantly strive to create and manage a set of expectations for the reader, and how those expectations are resisted or subverted to intensify, complicate or otherwise enhance the work at hand. This will be a generative workshop. In addition to daily discussions, there will be exercises for both creating new poems and revising existing work. The goal will be one new poem each day. After the week is over, I’ll conduct a follow-up conference with each student (by Skype or phone) to discuss work generated in the class.

Biography

Matthew Olzmann's newest book, Constellation Route, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in January 2022. He’s the author of two prior collections of poems, Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design.   A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, the Kresge Arts Foundation, and Kundiman, Olzmann's poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prizes, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Southern Review, and elsewhere. He is a Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.