Study with Willa Schneberg this Summer in Portland

Willa Schneberg is one of my favorite poets and people here in Portland, and I'm delighted to share with you information about upcoming classes with her:

SUMMER POETRY WORKSHOP SERIES WITH WILLA SCHNEBERG - 2010

Willa Schneberg will offer six summer workshops during July and August at her office in Portland's Pearl District. Three sessions in July and three in August. The dates are July 11, 18, 25 and August 8, 22, 29. The workshops will be held on Sundays from 1PM to 4PM, and each will encompass a different theme. In the first two thirds of each workshop, participants will have the opportunity to respond to prompts, write in a supportive group atmosphere, and share a first draft with other participants, if you so choose. During the last third, there will be time to critique poems you have previously written.  Refreshments will be served. My office is close to the streetcar, (the last stop in free-rail square), next to public parking, and air-conditioned for comfort during hot weather.

FIRST SERIES: POETRY OF THE ORDINARY (July 11)

Everything can be material for poetry. Poetry can be the opportunity to celebrate the everyday, the lived experience, and to see it anew. In this workshop we will utilize the poet’s toolbox of craft, rhythm, metaphor, image, the reimagined, the flights of fancy, focusing language like a camera lens, to see what we often overlook, take for granted- the quotidian.  We will read extraordinary poems about the ordinary, by poets such as Galway Kinnell, Jane Kenyon, and Charles Simic.

WRITING THE POLITICAL POEM (July 18)

In this workshop we will grapple with what constitutes the political poem and its sub-genre “Poetry of Witness.” How can we respond to injustice, environmental degradation, and genocide, for example, through the poem’s lyric, and not resort to polemical language? We will utilize the poetry from masters of this genre: Adrienne Rich, Denise Levertov, Martin Espada and Carolyn Forche, to guide us in this process.

MASTERING THE POETIC SEQUENCE (July 25)

The poetic sequence, or linked poems, are poems that inform each other either through content, theme, imagery, or point of view. The power of each poem is enhanced by its relationship to its sister poem like a painter working in a series. Participants will be asked to bring in a poem that can be viewed as a first link in a sequence. If you are already working on a sequence, you will add another one to the chain. We will read linked poems by Ruth Whitman, Natasha Tretheway, Peg Boyers and Rita Dove, all of whom are prominent poets in this form.

SECOND SERIES:

POETRY OF THE LIFE CYCLE (August 8)

In this workshop we will focus on poems about rites of passage and the life cycle. These might incorporate the “occasion poem” written for a wedding or a retirement. We will also reimagine the personal and not necessarily the universal moments that have marked our individual lives and consider our “first times” and “last times.” We will read poems by Robert Hass, W.S. Merwin, Marie Howe and Ellen Bass who have found inspiration in this vein.

THE POET’S PALATE  (August 22)

In this workshop, we will feed our poetic appetites, and awaken our palates on the page. We may write about the harvest, the marketplace, the sensuality of the dining experience, what we ingest, and what we imbibe. We will dine on poems of Galway Kinnell, Matthew Dickman, Paulann Petersen and Wendell Berry, and not leave hungry.

CRAFTING THE WORK POEM (August 29)

We all work at something, but the debate over what constitutes work and the role work should have in one’s life is an open question. We work, we play, we rest, and sometimes, work is play. Is the creative process work or play? We will explore our relationship to work and the work of others through the poetic objects of Clem Starck, Philip Levine, Gary Synder and John Morrison.

FEES:

Individual workshops --$40

Any three workshops - $100

Both series (all 6 workshops) -  $185

Twelve Participants Maximum

If you have any questions, or wish to reserve a place in one or more workshops, please contact Willa at info@threewayconversation.org, snowmntn@comcast.net, or phone: 503-248-4136. www.threewayconversation.org.

Comments

[Packet sniffers]

interesting post! The power of each poem is enhanced by its relationship to its sister poem like a painter working in a series. Participants will be asked to bring in a poem that can be viewed as a first link in a sequence.

[jordan retro 3]

No one can degrade us except ourselves; that if we are worthy, no influence can defeat us. What do you think?