No Bamboozling: Prose Poems for Pleasure: The poet William Stafford quipped in regard to prose poems, “You gain something in that the reader will feel you are not trying to bamboozle him with white space . . . prose poems don’t worry me.” Peter Johnson remarked that “the prose poem plants one foot in prose, the other in poetry, both heels resting precariously on banana peels.” In this workshop, we’ll read and discuss a variety of practitioners of this form, from early proponents like Rimbaud and Baudelaire to the likes of Lyn Hejinian, Joseph Stroud, Laynie Brown, Gary Young, and Ilhan Berk to discover ways in which this slippery form works. We’ll use writing exercises to get us thinking in new ways about our syntax and rhythm, and we’ll grapple with ideas and perceptions about content.
Articulating the Body: In this workshop, we’ll use movement and visualization exercises to more deeply inhabit the spaces where we live—our bodies—and then use these experiences to generate new writing. We’ll read examples of poetry about and of the body and create our own, with time for sharing, feedback and discussion. The movement exercises will loosen up our imaginations and connect us with our whole selves. Our focus will be on deep attention to the moving body as a means of accessing new creativity with which to make poems. No previous movement experience or poetry experience required.
The Short Series (two-day session): How does a poet treat a subject over a period of time, that is, in a series of poems? We can learn from a poet’s unique loves, their eye—the reverence for people, things, and places. According to William Stafford, “we can help each other find, in each of our lives, what is obscure but ready to be significant.” What are our poems capable of? How do they move, function? We’ll give time to these questions and to a close reading and absorption of the work of poets who explore this form. In our reading and discussion, we’ll give attention to what is happening within the poem, working together to notice details and craft. What do you remember about the world? How do you see it? What would it mean to re-see (to re-vise, through re-vision), again and again?
Tutor: Laressa Dickey.
