“A word is dead when it is said
Some say –
I say it just begins to live
That day.”

– Emily Dickinson

During this three week workshop, we will investigate what it means for the poems we have already written to “begin to live.” Instead of polished work, on the first day of the workshop each participant will bring in a piece of theirs that they feel is “dead” beyond all remedy. Over the course of the next three weeks, we will make radical interventions into these poems. Reading the work of poets like C.A. Conrad, Bhanu Kapil, and Ross Gay, participants will explore how these writers have considered the complex intersections of language and action. Looking to these writers as guides, we will try our hands at some of their methodologies.

Though this is a revision workshop, there will be no red pens involved! Instead, we will embark upon creative experiments. These may include “translating” our poems into images and then back again, burying our poems in the dirt, or cooking words into food. We will come away from each experiment with a revised draft, ultimately culminating in a portfolio of poems, each pulled from the same source. Through these processes, we will discover that even our “worst” poems are not, in fact, dead after all.

A week after our final meeting, we’ll be having an optional Zoom reading, where participants will have the opportunity to share their final revised pieces with their classmates, friends and family. This reading is non-mandatory, but will be a lot of fun! It will take place on Saturday, September 5th, so mark your calendars.

The Poem Inside the Poem: Experiments in Radical Revision