Calling ALL Writers to Poetry Workshops

Second Saturdays of the month 9:00 - 12:00

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Persona Poems: Radical Empathy and the Creation of Voice

Mary Kinzie defines persona as "the rhetorical pose that the speaker invents and speaks through" which might be very different from "what we expect the poet’s own rhetorical and intellectual position to be." Indeed persona literally means "mask" and may allow the poet to create a greater variety of voices and to imagine radical empathy: not just walking in someone else’s shoes, but speaking in someone else’s words and daring to imagine reality from a different perspective. In this workshop we will discuss the challenge of creating persona and voice, but also experiment playfully with its possibilities. Modeling ourselves on poets who write not only in the voices of other people (e.g. Walt Whitman or Elizabeth Alexander), but in the voices of flowers and inanimate objects (e.g. Louise Glück or Quraysh Ali Lansana), we will try our hand at writing short persona poems. Please bring copies of your own poems on any topic–persona or otherwise–to distribute and discuss during the workshop as well.

Virginia Bell’s poetry has appeared in A Writers' Congress: Chicago Poets on Barack Obama's Inauguration, Woman Made Gallery's 2009 "Her Mark" date book, Ekphrasis, Contrary Magazine, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and is forthcoming in Pebble Lake Review (along with an audio version of the poem on PLR's web site). She is an associate editor of RHINO and an adjunct professor at Loyola University. Bell has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and has also published scholarly articles on activist writers such as Eduardo Galeano and Leslie Marmon Silko, as well the Instructor’s Resource Manual for Beyond Borders: A Cultural Reader (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Connecting Through Metaphor

We know what metaphors are -- but what do they do?  How do they work?  Why is that important for our poetry?  Let's take a close look at metaphor in action, and examine how metaphors enrich the experience of reading and writing poetry.  We'll share examples from works by well-known poets and from our own works as we explore how metaphor helps us connect to images, ideas, feelings -- and to our readers.

Jan Bottiglieri’s poetry has appeared in Rhino, Oyez Review, Little America, Moon Journal and Point of View, as well as the anthologies Where We Live:  Illinois Poets and the upcoming Pacific Northwest Crow Poetry.  She is a member of the Arlington Poetry Project and was a finalist in the Poetry Center of Chicago’s Juried Reading in 2001.  She is currently working on her second chapbook.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

 The Art of Found Poetry

Poets have used a variety of poetic forms throughout the ages.  We will focus on a form known as "found poetry," and discuss the various sources of "found poetry." In addition to challenging a poet this form can be a source of fun as well.  If there is time after critiquing all the poems you bring to class, we can have an in-session  writing exercise in "found poetry."

Jo Stewart retired several years ago as Regional Director for the Chicago Department on Aging.  She's facilitated over 20 memoir writing workshops in the last 8 years.  Jo started her professional career as a reporter for the Southtown Economist but poetry has always been her first love.    Her poetry has been published by Modern Bride Magazine, the Blue Collar Review, various academic magazines and The Journal a publication of the Northwestern U. Life Long Learning program and one for which she has served as associate editor for 3years.  Her academic career and education spanned 22 years, 8 children and 4 institutions.