Poetry Palooza! Workshops

I want us to explore ways to see our own work in relation to the living world around us. Following a series of prompts and possibilities, this workshop will give you a chance to start growing in new directions on the page. We'll explore various strategies for how to get started, how to keep going, and how to improve what you've already written.

Literary critic Lawrence Buell coined the term “environmental imagination” to describe literature that wakes the reader up to the joys, wonders, and perils of environment in our work. Technically, “environment” is everything we see around us, but too often the interests of humans are foregrounded in our work. It makes sense—we like hearing and telling stories about ourselves. But how might our work be enriched if we include and account for the life of the planet and the more-than-human animals with whom we share this space? Disciplinary fields such as ecology and biology, place and landscape studies, natural history, animal studies, and natural resource ecology management—to name a few—offer a rich ground of language and knowledge to inspire writers of creative work. In this session, we will look at some short works that incorporate environmental imagination, then we’ll try our hand at applying environmental imagination in a generative session.

When a poet steps to the microphone, truth on the tip of their tongue and vulnerability in their voice, you listen. But what writing techniques does a performance poet use to hook their audience? From the syntax of the first line, to the structure of the whole poem, spoken word artists have found multiple ways to keep the audience’s attention. You may be a master at creating images, a poet that can capture passion and pain, even a talented storyteller, but if you cannot hook your audience they won’t stick around long enough for you to prove it. This workshop, designed for novice and experienced poets, will focus on the hook by examining the spoken word artists that have found a way—in just a minute—to capture the attention of millions of viewers online. The artists include names such as Neil Hilborn, Javon Johnson, Sabrina Benaim, Blythe Bard, and many others.