““There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
Please drop me a note to be added to my mailing list. (addoniziokim@gmail.com)
I don’t look at applications for critique groups between sessions, so please don’t send poems or info until you respond to a newsletter or a note here announcing a new session.
NEW WORKSHOPS 2024
LET’s WRITE: LIVE ON ZOOM MARCH 11-15
The Turn: Poetic Structures
A five-day craft & generative workshop—open to all, no application required
This class won’t just inspire you to write—it will also help you shape your poems in order to release the power and energy of your vision. Sure, our poems need heart, mind, fresh metaphors, precise language, ravishing imagery—but they also need structure. How can you shape a poem about events in the past? What are the possibilities of elegy? How do you avoid getting stuck in mere description? In this workshop, we’ll explore a few ways that poems can proceed, and we’ll jump off from discussing some examples to writing our own. We’ll talk about the concept of the turn, and study how poems move so they aren’t only one note, but also take us somewhere new and surprise us. This will be a combination of lecture/discussion and in-class writing that will inspire new work and give you ways to approach new drafts as well as revision. You’ll finish this intensive session with some new drafts, as well as useful tools to help you shape your material.
READINGS/CRAFT DISCUSSIONS/IN-CLASS WRITING
Day 1: THE TURN
Day 2: CONCESSION & EMBLEM STRUCTURE
Day 3: EPIPHANY & CIRCULAR STRUCTURE
Day 4: ELEGY
Day 5: RETROSPECTIVE
MARCH 11-15, Mon-Fri 9am--11:30am (US Pacific Time)
$500. Email me if interested: addoniziokim@gmail.com
The Happy Hour Sessions
with Kim Addonizio & Brittany Perham
Live on Zoom
Conversation, Craft, Writing
Sorry, this class has filled; wait list only
Thursday Evenings 5:30-7:30 Pacific Time
February 22, 29, & March 7 $300
Join me and fellow poet Brittany Perham as we dive into explorations of craft and process. Open to everyone, no application required.
Week 1 – Thursday, February 22nd Syntax & Line
Week 2 – Thursday, February 29th Repetition & Refrain in Linked Form Poems
Week 3 – Thursday, March 7th Designing a Writer’s Life: Strategies for Revision & Submission
In this series, we’ll explore three fundamental elements of poetry. Our first session will focus on questions of syntax and lineation, the smallest structural choices we make each time we write a poem. We’ll talk about the possibilities that exist in the interaction between line and sentence, and the way we might generate energy and surprise by exploring this relationship. In our second session, we’ll discuss the large-scale formal structures we use (and invent!) each time we write a poem. We’ll talk through several linked forms (such as the pantoum, villanelle, and triolet) so that we can better understand the formal choices we have at our disposal. As we talk about these forms, and try them out, we’ll better be able to see the ways repetition and refrain can scaffold both our metrical and free verse poems. In our final session, we’ll discuss strategies for supporting your life as a writer, from revision techniques to finding community to publishing your work. We’ll answer your questions about structuring your writing time, competitions, editors and submissions, and more.
During these poetic Happy Hours, you’ll have a chance to do a little writing (please note that we'll be doing more discussion than writing, but you'll have the opportunity to try out some focused writing exercises); talk about published poems; ask your questions; and connect with us and with each other. We hope you’ll bring your beverage of choice and join us for this series of informal and illuminating conversations
Here's a bit of information about Brittany:
Brittany Perham is the author of Double Portrait (W.W. Norton), which received the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award; The Curiosities (Free Verse Editions); and, with Kim Addonizio, the collaborative word/art project The Night Could Go in Either Direction (SHP). Her work has received support from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Hemingway House, the James Merrill House Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University.
BOOks for Poets
ORDINARY GENIUS: A GUIDE FOR THE POET WITHIN, Kim Addonizio (W.W. Norton)
THE POET'S COMPANION: A GUIDE TO THE PLEASURES OF WRITING POETRY, Kim Addonizio & Dorianne Laux (W.W. Norton)
IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND: THE POET'S PORTABLE WORKSHOP, Steve Kowit (Tilbury House)
WHY POETRY, Matthew Zapruder (Ecco)
BEST WORDS, BEST ORDER, Stephen Dobyns (St. Martin's)
STRUCTURE AND SURPRISE :ENGAGING POETIC TURNS, ed. Michael Theune (Teachers & Writers)
POETIC METER & POETIC FORM, Paul Fussell (McGraw Hill)
TEXT BOOK: AN INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY LANGUAGE, Robert Scholes, Nancy Comley, Greg Ulmer er (St. Martin's
