Poetry Workshop Just Two Weeks Away!

If you could see my dining room table, you’d think I’m a hoarder. The primary function of such a table should be eating but for weeks now, it’s become a planning station for the upcoming workshop I’m leading on Saturday, March 14 at the Pittsboro campus of Central Carolina Community College: Jumpstart Your Poetic Imagination. Scraps of paper, dog-eared books, and notebooks cover the surface, and frankly, I’d be ashamed for you to see it. That’s why instead I’ve posted a picture of a male bluebird in flight against the snow, caught by my husband on Thursday.

In spite of the clutter, I certainly feel like a bird in flight. I’ve been having the time of my life! I’ve been selecting poems by others to inspire us, and I’ll be honest, I’ve had to make some tough decisions. But I think I’m done. All poems are contemporary in nature, and go back as far as Emily Dickinson and Ezra Pound but some were published as recently as 2014.

From sad to joyous to humorous, these poems cover the seemingly simple fabric of life–from eating fruit to reading the news to observing backyard birds. But as we’ll see, these experiences are merely the lens through which we experience life’s complexities–love, death, loneliness, and hope, just to name a few.

The exercises are what I’m working on now and it is my hope with these that participants will understand (or deepen) what I’ve come to know–how the act of reading and writing poetry can help you feel more connected to the outer world. We’ll focus on imagery, have fun with random phrases, and stoke our imagination by making up stories about ourselves. Most importantly, and this is my greatest hope, we’ll have FUN!

I’ll close with a quote. While I’m not familiar with the writer, her words are timeless and set the stage beautifully for our workshop:

“Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.” ~Catherine Drinker Bowen, Atlantic, December 1957

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday, March 14.  If you’ve not signed up, whaaat? It’s okay, it’s not too late. You can easily register today online or by calling 919-545-8044, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. M – F.