workshops & events

I believe the target audience of poetry is everybody. I believe we are all poets and know what poetry does. It makes us feel, as Emily Dickinson puts it, like “the top of my head were taken off.” I’ve not met a person who didn’t desire - no, need - to feel that sensation of awe in the face of vulnerability. Poetry can enrich our lives. That claim is simple. Poetry is our lives. That truth and acceptance changes how we live. In workshops and classes and meetings by the side of the road we gather and take inventory of, what Marianne Moore calls, “the garden of our imagination.” It is a privilege to have the opportunity to inform, guide, and write with fellow seekers. Whether you are looking to explore, to find readers, to find perspective, or simply - and most importantly - listen, all are welcome to join in the pleasure of the work. And the work is fun.

Echo & DANCE FEBRUARY 2021

Tuesdays 2.2, 2.9, 2.16, 2.23 / INDIANA WRITERS CENTER / 7-9:30pm 

The Echo & Dance workshop for February is subtitled, This Poem is No Joke. Of course, writing is quite serious work. And quite serious fun. Together we will look at poems that employ humor. By making us grin or laugh out loud, the joke disarms us. While we are chuckling, the poem’s message strikes us unaware. We will consider everything from word play to comedic conceits to one-liners. We will explore work ranging from Ogden Nash to Tony Hoagland, and participants are welcome to offer their own suggestions for our reading. We should remember, seriously, a few words from the poet Larry Levis:

And maybe he would be reminded that the body, too
is only a thing, a joke it kept trying to tell us
and now the moment for hearing it
is past.

Let us write our poems. Let us tell our jokes.

register here for the workshop

Additional Details:
The class aims to foster a familiarization with reading and responding to poetry as well as provide an opportunity for writers to share ideas and work in a productive and safe environment. After the conclusion of the class students are invited to submit a 3-5 page portfolio of work and receive feedback. Each new offering of the workshop will focus on a specific theme.

The first and third meetings will be spent discussing poems selected by the instructor. Discussions are not meant to uncover any hidden meaning or secret code. They are meant to describe our experience with the poem.

At our second and fourth meetings participants will workshop their own work modeled after poems they find inspiring. In reading each other’s work we are focused on our response to the poem rather than a critique of the poem. We will describe our observations so that the author has a sense of a reader’s experience.

Quite simply, we are dedicating our meetings to the wonderful task of reading and writing like writers. This class also serves to foster one of the most important elements of the writing and reading life – community. We are the echo and we will dance.

Echo & Dance september 2020

Tuesdays 9.15, 9.22, 9.29, 10.2 / indiana writers center / 7-9 pm

"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”        

- Carl Sandburg

While written in solitude, poetry exists for the people and off the page. We hope the collaborative nature of our gathering offers those poems a space to be heard. We will spend our meetings considering a variety of poets, styles, subject matter, and sharing our own poems modeled after the work we have discussed. The class aims to foster a familiarization with reading and responding to poetry as well as provide an opportunity for writers to share ideas and work in a productive and safe environment.

In reading each other's work we should be more focused on our response to the poem rather than a critique of the poem. Quite simply, we are dedicating our meetings to the wonderful task of reading and writing like writers. This class serves to foster one of the most important elements of the writing and reading life – community. We are the echo and we will dance.

2-3 poems will receive feedback at the conclusion of the class

the everyday poem April 2020

SUNDAY 4.26.20 / INDIANA WRITERS CENTER / 1-4 pm 

This workshop will focus on poems that use daily experiences as material. Whether it be an embrace with a partner in the morning, noticing a bee by the hydrangea, or whatever might have made us pause in our busy days, there is almost always something that we remember when we retire at night. Many poets, obviously, have used these everyday experiences as the subject for poems that have proved timeless. We will discuss examples of poems, generate our own material and writing, and ultimately examine how we might honor the mundane by crafting our language and engaging in discovery, layering of understanding of the subject. Our goal is simple: elevate ourselves through honest reflection in the hope of arriving at a truth organic.