Shaping the Page

Poetry is always a shape on the page. Whether it is a rectangular prose box, a series of couplets, or a continuous descent of lines of varying lengths, the effect is that we enter into the poem’s structure in much the same way we enter a room in a house. We take in the content of the poem—its meaning, its message to us—but we are also affected by the way things are arranged:  how they look and sound. One of the pleasures of writing poetry is learning to shape the “room” of the poem in various ways. This workshop is for writers who would like to consider the more technical aspects of poetry, who welcome the chance to talk about the intricacies of meter and line, and who would enjoy experimenting with a variety of poetic forms (sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, ghazals—to name a few). Although this workshop will acquaint participants with strategies associated with poetic expression (rhyme, meter, assonance, alliteration, and metaphor, for example), the main purpose of the time will be to draft new poems and to celebrate each other’s work.