DETAILS
PAY at the DOOR
The 2017 Sacramento Poetry Center Writing Conference
will feature presentations and readings by:
Indigo Moor, Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Paul Hoover, Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Marsha de la O, Kathleen Winter
will feature presentations and readings by:
Indigo Moor, Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Paul Hoover, Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Marsha de la O, Kathleen Winter
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10:00
Indigo Moor: “Balancing Image & Statement.”
How to make a poem flow, move in the intended ways of the author. Poems are too often bogged down with excessive imagery or rendered less than “artistic” by extensive exposition. The former creates poetry without anchors for the reader to grasp direction; the latter, poetry with no creativity. This interactive workshop will look at examples of contemporary poetry to enable each poet set elements and guidelines to balance his or her work. This workshop contains exercises.
How to make a poem flow, move in the intended ways of the author. Poems are too often bogged down with excessive imagery or rendered less than “artistic” by extensive exposition. The former creates poetry without anchors for the reader to grasp direction; the latter, poetry with no creativity. This interactive workshop will look at examples of contemporary poetry to enable each poet set elements and guidelines to balance his or her work. This workshop contains exercises.
OR
Hugh Behm-Steinberg: “Showing and Telling: Writing Great Narrative Poems”
What often drives us to write poems are the stories and experiences we wish to tell or describe. But how does one go about writing narrative poems that also work as poems, and not just short stories with line breaks? We’ll look at contemporary takes on narrative, discuss tools and techniques, and run through a quick exercise to jumpstart your next great narrative poem.
Hugh Behm-Steinberg: “Showing and Telling: Writing Great Narrative Poems”
What often drives us to write poems are the stories and experiences we wish to tell or describe. But how does one go about writing narrative poems that also work as poems, and not just short stories with line breaks? We’ll look at contemporary takes on narrative, discuss tools and techniques, and run through a quick exercise to jumpstart your next great narrative poem.
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11:30
Paul Hoover: “The End of the Poem”
This workshop will deal the length of poems, from Japanese hokku to Imagism to the current practice of the serial poem, which creates long poems from a series of unfinished passages and fragments. Poe claimed there is no such thing as a long poem. Stevens wrote, “Poetry is that which suffices.” What is enough language to make a poem? What is too much? How much silence is necessary for the truth to emerge? The instructor will provide copies of model poems and we will do some in-class writing.
This workshop will deal the length of poems, from Japanese hokku to Imagism to the current practice of the serial poem, which creates long poems from a series of unfinished passages and fragments. Poe claimed there is no such thing as a long poem. Stevens wrote, “Poetry is that which suffices.” What is enough language to make a poem? What is too much? How much silence is necessary for the truth to emerge? The instructor will provide copies of model poems and we will do some in-class writing.
OR
Iris Jamahl Dunkle: “Talking Back to History” (following the tradition of Writing from Primary Sources in order to find Truth)
In this talk, Iris Jamahl Dunkle will talk about the tradition of talking back to history in poetry and her own process for writing poetry series from primary documents. She’ll begin by examining several important poetry sequences that revealed new truths by working with primary documents. She’ll also discuss her work unearthing the story of Pithole, PA, one of the first oil boomtowns in America that thrived and then burned to the ground just after the Civil War, and research in the Jack London Collection at the Huntington Library in Southern California for her most recent collection of poems, “Human Document.”
Iris Jamahl Dunkle: “Talking Back to History” (following the tradition of Writing from Primary Sources in order to find Truth)
In this talk, Iris Jamahl Dunkle will talk about the tradition of talking back to history in poetry and her own process for writing poetry series from primary documents. She’ll begin by examining several important poetry sequences that revealed new truths by working with primary documents. She’ll also discuss her work unearthing the story of Pithole, PA, one of the first oil boomtowns in America that thrived and then burned to the ground just after the Civil War, and research in the Jack London Collection at the Huntington Library in Southern California for her most recent collection of poems, “Human Document.”
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1:00 Lunch (provided)
2:00
Marsha de la O: “How Landscape Inscribes Us”
This workshop is based on the intersection of the natural world and human psyche in poetry.
This workshop is based on the intersection of the natural world and human psyche in poetry.
OR
Kathleen Winter: “Science in the Age of Faux-News: Blend Fact with Verse, Your Way”
As the country confronts falsehoods and threats to our national institutions for arts and science, let’s take a moment to explore how poetry engages with the facts and mysteries of science. Fortunately, we don’t have to be scientists in order to charge our poems with some of the power and wisdom of science. How to do this is up to you, but we’ll consider various ways contemporary poets are blending scientific fact or the weird wonderful history of science into their verse. We’ll look at some of the roles scientific knowledge and research play in poems, and how they may motivate our writing.
Kathleen Winter: “Science in the Age of Faux-News: Blend Fact with Verse, Your Way”
As the country confronts falsehoods and threats to our national institutions for arts and science, let’s take a moment to explore how poetry engages with the facts and mysteries of science. Fortunately, we don’t have to be scientists in order to charge our poems with some of the power and wisdom of science. How to do this is up to you, but we’ll consider various ways contemporary poets are blending scientific fact or the weird wonderful history of science into their verse. We’ll look at some of the roles scientific knowledge and research play in poems, and how they may motivate our writing.
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CALL for info or reservations: Tim Kahl (916) 714-5401
