Poet • Educator
I’ll be teaching 2 sections of this 6 week course at Hugo House starting September 14th and September 15th. All of it on Zoom.
Registration is open.
The Words to Say It: Reading & Writing Poems about Illness, Trauma & Healing (ZOOM) Section I
The Words to Say It: Reading & Writing Poems about Illness, Trauma & Healing (ZOOM) Section II
I’ll be teaching a 2 day workshop in Port Townsend. Come join me at The Writers Workshoppe.
Dates: Saturday and Sunday, April 4th and 5th
Time: 10:00am to 3:00pm
Cost: $170
Limited to: 10 participants
“Story [or poetry] is both a primal, concrete way of ordering experience and also a way of opening the self to disorder. When lyric ceases to hide behind abstraction…and descend down into the chaos and specifics of the physical world to seek its meanings, it is another way that it has of making itself vulnerable to disorder. …One of story’s primary purposes is to lay claim to experience. Autobiographical storytelling can take personal experience back from silence, shame, fear, or oblivion… By telling his or her story, the poet overcomes isolation and silence.” — Gregory Orr
“The only way through pain…is to absorb, probe, understand exactly what it is and what it means. To close the door on pain is to miss the chance for growth…”- May Sarton
In this two day intensive workshop we will read and write poems about our experiences with illness, trauma and healing. These experiences are held in our bodies and we will engage in an initial centering exercise to help us focus. We will read poems with an eye and ear to understanding how emotions and experiences are captured and held in images, metaphors and narratives. I will provide you with prompts and structures for writing. There will be time to share and receive feedback on the second day of the workshop. You will come away with a better appreciation for how poetry can hold the often unspeakable and ineffable, and a couple of your own new drafts of poems or stories. Some experience with poetry or writing is helpful but not required.
I plan to teach a 3rd session of my class The Words to Say It: Writing and Reading Poems about Illness, Trauma & Healing at Hugo House starting April 17, 2019.
I’ve taught this 6 week workshop before but thought I’d share one of the many approaches I use to start writing for those of you who may be interested in the class but wonder how it goes.
Writing Poems about Illness & Trauma-How To.
If you think this class interests you, you can register here.
I’ll be teaching the 2nd round of this class at Hugo House starting October 1st and running for 6 weeks. I’d love to see you there. Please register soon. Here’s a little preview of the course.
By focusing on the craft of writing, we can transform personal experience into art. Readings will include excerpts from: Poetry in Medicine, The Healing Art: A Doctor’s Black Bag of Poetry, Poetry As Survival, and Beauty Is a Verb, as well as the work of Alicia Ostriker, Lucia Perillo, Susan Sontag, Lucille Clifton, Anatole Broyard, and Kevin Young, among others. Each week there will be readings, discussion, and writing prompts. There will be time to receive feedback after the first class.
We’ll also read some short prose pieces and excerpts from longer creative, non-fiction.
Feel free to pass this information on to whomever might be interested.