Our Workshops

Weekend Workshops

Poetry may be the best way to experience the imaginative vitality of language. One indication of this is the abundant range of poetic forms that represent verbal inventiveness in every era. With Emily Dickinson as the core author and point of departure, this workshop examines a selection of poems from the historical to the contemporary, noticing differences in the way they work. A central question is how and why we choose the poetry we teach in our classrooms. This question poses the most difficulties in relation to modern and contemporary poetries and poetries from diverse cultures. The workshop leader suggests a rich menu of poetic texts and reflects on the reasons for and means of making such a selection. Most important, the workshop explores a number of approaches and practices for working with the poems themselves-- through writing, reading aloud, and collaborative performance. The aim is to enter the sometime exotic territory of the poem in a way that is active, contemplative, exhilarating, and evocative.