In this workshop we will think of poetic structures as a rib cage to let a poem breathe—letting go of the idea that a received form can trap inspiration. Instead, we will explore the surprises of imagination that can occur with forms. Along with student work, we will look at classic and contemporary triolets, sonnets, and villanelles, stretching our ideas of structure from a how-to point of view. To help us in writing from the inside out, there will be daily assignments/suggestions with individually tailored ideas for creating rib cages for your poems. No daily assignment needs to be completed to perfection. My aim is to leave you with an orchardful of possibilities and the courage to try them. We will consider poems in the spirit of expansion, not in terms of perfectionism. Our motto? In the attempt is the success. Participants will submit three poems in advance, considered to be unfinished and that have not been in a workshop elsewhere.
MOLLY PEACOCK‘s collections of poetry include The Second Blush: Poems (W. W. Norton & Co., 2008); Cornucopia (W. W. Norton & Co., 2002); Original Love (W. W. Norton & Co., 1995); Take Heart (Random House, 1989); Raw Heaven (Random House, 1984); and And Live Apart (The University of Missouri Press, 1980). She is also the author of prose, including How to Read a Poem, and Start a Poetry Circle (Riverhead Books, Penguin/ McClelland & Stewart, 1999) and her literary memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece (Riverhead Books, Penguin/ McClelland & Stewart, 1998). She is the editor of the anthology, The Private I: Privacy in a Public World (Graywolf Press, 2001), and co-editor of Poetry in Motion: 100 Poems from the Subways and Buses (W.W. Norton and Company, 1996). A President Emerita of the Poetry Society of America, she was an originator of Poetry in Motion, a program that places poems on placards in subways and buses. Peacock has been a Writer-in-Residence and teacher at numerous universities, and is currently a member of the graduate faculty of Spalding University’s Brief Residency MFA Program, the Elliston Poet at the University of Cincinnati, and Lecturer at the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y. She was an Honorary Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and served as Poet-in-Residence at The American Poets’ Corner, Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. She received awards from The Danforth Foundation, The Ingram Merrill Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Peacock has performed her one-woman show in poems, The Shimmering Verge, Off Broadway and throughout North America. She lives in Toronto.
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