Winter 2007 Workshops at Writers & Books

Poetry

Delving into Poetry

• WA7-P01
• Saturday, 10 a.m.–12 p.m.
• January 20
• $37 W&B members / $39 general public
• Instructor: Sally Bittner Bonn

Have you always enjoyed reading poetry but have been afraid to write it? Do you want to get back to writing poetry after a long absence? Are you writing in another genre and want to try your hand at poetry? The one-day workshop will explore what makes poetry unique from other genres. In-class writing exercises, as well as readings of published poetry, will get creativity going. You will be given resources to further your exploration beyond the workshop.

How to register

Register online

Poetry Reading for Poets

• WA7-P02
• 6 Mondays, 6:30–8:30 p.m.
• February 12 through March 19
• $113 W&B members / $119 general public / Limit 12
• Instructor: Donna M. Marbach

Good poets are readers as well as writers of poetry. While designed as a companion course to the Craft of Poetry, this course may also be taken as a separate entity. We will look at the work of both major and minor poets and how they used the elements of craft in their works. Why does Dickinson capitalize some words? What is Cummings’ point in playing with punctuation? Students should purchase (or obtain from the library) a copy of Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems as the key text. We will also use, The Best Poems of the English Language by Harold Bloom and Robert Pinsky’s An Introduction to Poetry. However, copies of poems from these texts and others will be made available through photocopies for class use.

How to register

Register online

Elements of Craft for Poets

• WA7-P03
• 5 Mondays, 6:30–8:30 p.m.
• March 26 through April 23
• $95 W&B members / $99 general public
• Instructor: Donna M. Marbach

Poetry is an art. However, like any art, it has basic rules, tools, and vocabulary that must be mastered, one must learn the basics of craft. In this workshop, we will explore the devices and vocabulary of poetry: we will look at words (their literal definitions and their connotations), their history and sounds (alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance, internal rhyme etc.), explore imagery through metaphor, simile, personification, synesthesia, and synecdoche and more, and look at metered and syllabic forms as well as free verse. We will explore different thoughts on line breaks, diction, and allusions, talk about audience, purpose, and voice. Finally, we will read from the work of some notable poets as well as try various exercises on craft of our own, learning to add poetic vocabulary and poetic technique to our poetry tool kits in an effort to improve our writing skills.

How to register

Register online

Rules for Rebels: An Introduction to Poetic Form

• WA7-P04
• 5 Tuesdays, 7–9 p.m.
• February 13 through March 20 (no class on February 20)
• $95 W&B members / $99 general public
• Instructor: Sonja Livingston

Modern writers are often intimidated (but intrigued) by poetic forms. Other than the fun-loving limerick, and the harmonious haiku, students of contemporary poetry often steer clear of verse forms. This class offers participants the opportunity to learn four
traditional forms (sonnet, villanelle, sestina, ghazal). Appropriate for experienced free verse poets, as well as beginners, the course will focus on teaching the basics of each form, as well as studying examples from literature, and trying our hands at each. Participants will have the chance to share work and receive feedback, but the focus will be on demystifying poetic form and making it a part of our experience as poets.

How to register

Register online

For Teachers of Youth! Slam Poetry in Your Curriculum

• WY7-P09
• Saturdays, 9:30–Noon
• December 16 & January 20 (attend one or both)
• Free to teachers and teaching artists. Limit: 16 per session
• Instructors: Reenah Golden-Collier & Tom Painting

Teachers: join Performance Poet and Teaching Artist, Reenah Golden-Collier
and SOTA Creative Writing Teacher, Tom Painting for professional development
training in using Spoken Word and Slam Poetry in your curriculum, and in
teaching and coaching students in writing and delivering performed poetry.
These workshops are sponsored by the Warner School of Education at the
University of Rochester and Partners for Arts in Education, and can be used
for professional development credit.

How to register

Register online

Sources and Forces: A Poem-Starter Workshop

• WA7-P05
• Saturday, 10 a.m.–12 noon
• February 24
• $35 W&B members / $39 general public / Limit 12
• Instructor: Edward Dougherty

For new, or experienced poets who happen to feel stuck, this gathering explores various sources for poems from memory to direct sensory observation, and from imagination to language play. The emphasis will be on exercises to generate materials and jumpstart imaginations. Fast-paced but reflective, the atmosphere will be charged!

How to register

Register online

Celebrating Black History Month: African American Themes in Poetry

• WA7-P06
• 4 Saturdays, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
• February 3 through 24
• $37 W&B members / $39 general public / Limit 12
• Instructor: Akua Lezli Hope

The saga of Africans in America offers an inexhaustible wealth of possibilities for poetic exploration. Each meeting participants will consider historic African American themes and a canonical poem by an African American poet on this theme. These themes include resistance to bondage and enslavement, self-determination, freedom, double/multi-consciousness, and envisioning a new identity. Students will use readings and class discussion as prompts for generating new poems in this unique workshop that combines reading, learning, and writing.

How to register

Register online

Ways of Showing, Ways of Knowing

• WA7-P07
• 3 Saturdays, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
• March 3 through 17
• Price $37 W&B members / $39 general public
• Instructor: Akua Lezli Hope

  Poetry persists. Creating poetry opens up possibilities for communicating experience in new ways. At the same time, it gives the person who works to create the poem new insight and opportunity to make meaning. This workshop will focus on generating new work and exercises that point toward “showing,” rather than “telling,” moving from the muck and mire of mere reportage to the soul opening that poetry offers. Several poetic forms will be explored.

How to register

Register online

Myth and Transcendence in Your Life Story

• WA7-P08
• 3 Saturdays, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
• April 14 through 28
• $37 W&B members / $39 general public
• Instructor: Akua Lezli Hope

This women-only workshop for adult writers welcomes both new and experienced women poets. “Myth and Transendence in Your Life Story” is the focus of this poetry-writing workshop where participants are invited to exploren their personal histories to recover/discover the mythic and to create poems based on what is found there.

How to register

Register online

Hybrid Poetry

• WA7-P10
• 4 Thursdays, 7–9 p.m.
• January 11 through February 1
• $95 W&B members / $99 general public
• Instructor: Gerald Schwartz

In this workshop we will experiment with fusing separate genress of writing into poetic hybrids. Students will work using different elements of fiction, drama, memoir, and non-fiction mixed and recombined within the genre, exploring poetry as an inclusive, speculative catalyst for making writing that crosses lines. We will read the poetic line-crossers, including Bernadette Mayer, Kamua Braithwaite, Charles Olson, and others. We will look at questions of structure, content, and effect in poetry from the perspective of other disciplines, especially natural sciences and mysticism.

How to register

Register online

Deep Revision: an Advanced Workshop for Poets

• WA7-P11
• Saturday, 1–4 p.m.
• March 10
• $37 W&B members / $39 general public
• Instructor: Patricia Roth Schwartz

How often do we give up on a recalcitrant poem, or settle
for a draft we know isn't what it could be? In this intensive, learn and
practice a variety of techniques and processes for deeply revising a piece
of work to make it as good, in terms of both craft and inspiration, as it
can be. Bring copies of one poem (you will be told in advance how many
copies) to workshop with the group. No "critiquing" -- just gentle help.
Expect amazing results! A bibliography and handouts are included.

How to register

Register online

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