24Pearlstreet Workshops

Does it sometimes seem as if the poetry world is divided into camps determined to prove that the other camps have nothing to offer? And where do you fit in? This workshop recognizes that the best poetry often doesn’t fit into any stylistic mode, and uses what techniques it needs as it finds them. You’ll generate new poems and revise your work for supportive, frank, detailed critique by the instructor and group, and you’ll read and discuss relevant work by modern and contemporary poets, starting with the A-List–Alice Oswald, Anne Winters, Anne Carson and Ange Mlinko–with the goal of failing, wonderfully, to fit in. In place of traditional formal prompts, we’ll consider—in magpie spirit, and in hopes of embracing confusion as a way to work towards clarity—strategic, formal and thematic questions designed to provide focus but leave most choices up to you. And while we will likely make plenty of suggestions for specific edits as you revise, the most important revision questions will be: “Who are you? Who do you want to be? What do you want your poems to be?” Poets at any level who find these questions engaging are welcome.