Classes & Workshops
Poets House | Poetry as Rhetorical Experimentation
In-Person Workshop | 4 Wednesdays | Oct 7 - Oct 28 | 6:30 - 8:30pm ET | $240 ($190 for members)
Poetry is an art that is often defined by what it is not. It is not prose (except when it is). It is not music (until it is set to a tune). In The Essential Poet’s Glossary, Samuel Johnson is quoted as saying “to circumscribe poetry by a definition will only show the narrowness of the definier.” What if, instead, we were to reorient ourselves away from what poetry is and toward what poetry can make possible? In this generative workshop, we will view poetry as any attempt to disrupt our everyday engagement with language. By reading pieces that make use of techniques like repetition and prosody, as well as by analyzing hybrid texts, we will generate and discuss work that seeks to best capture what language sometimes fails to communicate.
PSNY Virtual Workshop: The Afterparty
An all-levels generative virtual workshop with poet DeeSoul Carson!
As artists, there is always a concern with the originality of our work and how we stand out without biting off someone else's style. However, as the old adage goes, no man is an island. We are constantly inspired and influence by the various mediums we encounter in the world. How can we use these influences to jumpstart our own writing without creating parody? In this workshop, we'll consider how we borrow from, take inspiration from, reinvent, and recontextualize the texts and media we consume on a daily basis while maintain our own poetic voices.
Poets House | Better Readers, Better Writers
Remote 6-Week Workshop | Jan 15 - Feb 19 | 6:30 - 8:30pm ET | $360 ($320 for members)
As poets, we know that to become better writers, we must also become better readers of poetic work. But how does one do that? Where do we begin? By this point, you may be familiar with examining a text and asking: What does this poem mean? We will move from asking “what” an author is doing or what their work means and towards “how” their craft choices lead us to create meaning from a text. We will give language to the rhetorical devices used in poems and how poets pattern their language, and then use this knowledge to generate our own work. If we want to break the rules of poetry successfully, we first have to know what they are. Think of the workshop not as a place for us to “rehabilitate” your writing, but instead as a place to experiment, take risks, and learn from your peers.
Game Mechanics: Form, Function, and Expanding What Poetry Can Be
What can a roguelike’s looping structure—like the endless escape attempts in Hades—teach us about poetic form, iteration, and the meaning that emerges through repetition? How does a game’s interface guide (or restrict) player experience—and how might that inform how a poem moves across the page?
In this craft session, we’ll explore how video games and other visual media can serve as generative frameworks for writing poetry and rethinking the written word. We’ll examine how these mechanics challenge assumptions about what a poem is, and what it can do.
This session will include a craft talk, generative writing opportunities, and group discussion.