Writing Circle: Making Your Poems from the Inside Out

Writing Circle: Making Your Poems from the Inside Out

with Marj Hahne

Consider this: A poem is a body of words, not a body of thoughts and feelings. Yes, our thoughts and feelings and experiences may catalyze our poems, but how we choreograph our words, how we make meaning (not what our words say or mean), is what moves a poem from self-expression to literary art. How do we make such poems, textual/subtextual bodies that enact and transform experience (rather than report or describe it) so that discovery or rediscovery is possible for both writer and reader?

We build them from the inside out, which requires relating to language primarily as material, as our artistic medium (and secondarily as meaning). For each session of this 8-session writing circle, we will examine, via the interrogation and discussion of model poems, one of multiple local or global strategies that make a poem poetry, followed by a generative or revision exercise to practice that strategy.
 
This Writing Circle is for you if you’re seeking:

• a breakthrough in, or jumpstart to, your poem-making
• practical, immediately applicable craft strategies for drafting and revising
• a structure for learning and practicing in digestible pieces
• fresh distinctions for interrogating and illuminating your poems

YouTube:  https://bit.ly/2LxHUG2