Description
Dates: November 3, 10, 17, 24 & December 8, 15
Time: 5-7 pm Eastern, Virtual
1 Spot Left
Not a single poem. Not a book of poems. But a secret third thing.
In this six-week workshop, we’ll inhabit the magical third space that is created when poems speak to each other. We’ll ask: What is intertextuality, and what does it make possible? We’ll read poems and interviews with poets who are working in this space. We’ll use generative exercises to come up with our own big-picture idea, test the limits of that idea, and then draft our own five-poem (or more!) series as well as a blueprint for expansion to an eventual chapbook or full-length manuscript.
Questions we’ll consider include: How much should I plan ahead, and how much should I let loose? How can I recognize whether an obsession is limiting or liberating my creative spirit (and when to quit)? What purpose does sameness of form, imagery, and subject serve, and when might it become boring for both me and my readers? How can research expand the scope of my project? And what about publishing in journals? Should poems stand on their own? And of course, we’ll acknowledge the pros and cons of the poetry “project.”
We’ll include discussion time to share ideas and poems in an open and generative-minded workshop atmosphere. By the end of this class, you’ll have a good start on your next book and a set of brainstorming tools to ensure you’ll never run out of ideas. You’ll never want to write “just one poem” again.
Cynthia Marie Hoffman is the author of four full-length “project” books (but, shh! maybe don’t call them that?) written from both personal experience and researched topics. Her most recent collection, Exploding Head, is an OCD memoir in prose poems. She is the co-editor of The Cloudy House, which is home to more than 50 interviews with authors of poetry project books. Essays have appeared in The Sun, TIME, and Lit Hub. Poetry has appeared in Electric Literature, The Believer, and The Los Angeles Review. Hoffman is the recipient of a Diane Middlebrook Fellowship in Poetry at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Wisconsin Arts Board, and a Director’s Guest fellowship at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Italy. More at cynthiamariehoffman.com.
