A focus on form is a great way to sharpen your eye for the potential or abandoned poem, whether you're looking to surprise yourself with unexpected leaps of imagination and voice or hoping to find the best ideas hidden in your journal pages. This class will help the writer develop a working knowledge of the formal idea, both as it comes to us through the history of literature and as it is made new by contemporary explorations of its possibilities. From the 'alphabet poem' to those zones of creativity opened by chance procedures, putting forms as old as the sonnet and as new as 'The New Sentence' at the service of the writer, this workshop will give the student foolproof ways to generate new material and rescue discarded work. Students registered for this workshop should bring scissors and glue or tape to the class, as well as paper and pens, as this will be a very hands-on and productive session. Students should also bring a couple of poems they want to work on (more than one copy of each) as well as a xeroxed page or two from a free-writing, journal, or found text. Our efforts here will be devoted not to critique, but to generating fruitful possibilities, and you should come prepared to put words down on the page and play with the intriguing and sometimes mysterious suggestions they open. Some readings (available at Jade Creek) will be recommended as resources for further study.

Email: Laura.Mullen@colostate.edu
Enrollment Limit: 20

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