Description
Have you ever written a poem about something close to your heart and then wondered whether it would resonate with anyone else? One of the great ironies of poetry writing is that poems that dig deepest into our own experiences are often the most universal. When we share our humanity authentically, others respond.
Some of what sparks poetry is a mystery. As the great Mexican poet, Octavio Paz, wrote:
Between what I see and what I say,
between what I say and what I keep silent,
between what I keep silent and what I dream,
between what I dream and what I forget:
poetry.
Many of the greatest poets, such as Philip Larkin and Sylvia Plath, have written searingly personal poems that resonate with a wide reading public.
Via interactive discussions, prompts, exercises, and other techniques, this workshop will give us the tools to universalize personal poems for a broader audience. We’ll talk about how to tap our deepest experiences and spin them into art. We’ll explore how the use of details can inform those poems. And we’ll tap into authenticity, clarity, and powerful images as routes to poems that resonate with wide audiences.
In short, we’ll find poetry in the cracks between what we say and what we keep silent, as we move from the personal to the universal.
