Find Your Poetry Muse: An Eight Week Creative Journey Online Course Apr-Jun 2021

Online Course Info:

This is an eight-week online course that features Monday LIVE Zoom guided workshops with sample poems, writing prompts, Q&A, and weekly assignments. On Fridays, there will be another LIVE session, for group workshopping of poems.

Online Workshop Participant Cap:

12 students.

What You’ll Learn & Experience:

Poet Gail Carson Levine will help you find ways to grow your craft, sharpen your voice, and expand your poetic and creative boundaries. You’ll participate in guided workshops, intended to ignite your inner muse through discussion, lecture, and generative writing exercises.

This workshop has been crafted for poets who are looking to grow their craft, sharpen Voice, and reach for magic and muse wherever it grows. All writing exercises are geared toward writing poems to share with peers, not connected to a specific work-in-progress, and not connected to a children or youth audience.

You’ll try out forms, like ghazals and triolets, and poetic approaches, like narrative, political, and lyric poems. Your own work will be informed by wonderful poems by established poets. Replenish and restore with this creative journey that will focus on the poetic form itself, not tied to one reader or group.

Required Reading:
Best American Poetry of 2020
Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds
Poems by Elizabeth Bishop (no need to read her translations)

Please note:
If you’re unable for any reason to attend any of the sessions, you’ll have access to the recordings of each through July 15, 2021.

Join Us If:

• You could use a creative stretch. The exercises, discussions and lectures in this course will help you expand your creative boundaries.
• You could benefit from some structure as you grow. With Gail as your creative guide, you will unlock new words and spark new pathways.
• You enjoy poetry and would like to add to your poetic repertoire. The sessions will provide ample opportunity to deepen your knowledge.
• You CRAVE writing exercises. Feel the need to put poetry to page? Each week has guided prompts.

Preliminary Agenda

Monday sessions will be recorded and placed in the virtual classroom (one Tuesday session). Friday sessions take place at 2pm Eastern. Friday sessions will not be recorded. To get the most from this hands-on course, please attend all classes, unless an emergency prevents you from attending.

Week 1
Monday, April 19, LIVE Zoom starts 1:30pm Eastern
1:30-2pm: Optional welcome and poet introductions
2-4pm: Overview of workshop, sample poems, give assignment #1, and Q & A.

Wednesday, April 21
Submissions DUE by 6pm Eastern

Friday, April 23, LIVE Zoom starts 2pm Eastern
2-4pm: Workshopping poems: Group discussion of poems

Week 2
Monday, April 26, LIVE Zoom starts 1:45pm Eastern
1:45-2pm: Optional informal meet and greet for Week 2
2-3pm: Workshopping poems
3-4pm: Sample poems, give assignment #2, and brief Q & A

Wednesday, April 28
Submissions DUE by 6pm Eastern

Friday, April 30, LIVE Zoom starts at 2pm Eastern
2-4pm: Workshopping poems: Group discussion of poems

Week 3
Monday, May 3, LIVE Zoom starts at 1:45pm Eastern
1:45-2pm: Optional informal meet and greet for Week 3
2-3pm: Workshopping poems
3-4pm: Sample poems, give assignment #3, and brief Q & A

Wednesday, May 5
Submissions DUE by 6pm Eastern

Friday, May 7, LIVE Zoom starts at 2pm Eastern
2-4pm: Workshopping poems: Group discussion of poems

Week 4 * Please note special schedule
Monday, May 10, LIVE Zoom starts 1:45pm Eastern
1:45-2pm: Optional informal meet and greet for Week 4
2-3pm: Facilitated discussion with Susan Campbell Bartoletti

*No submissions or workshopping this week.

Week 5
Monday, May 17, LIVE Zoom starts at 1:45pm Eastern
1:45-2pm: Optional informal meet and greet for Week 5
2-3pm: Workshopping poems
3-4pm: Sample poems, give assignment #5, and brief Q & A

Wednesday, May 19
Submissions DUE by 6pm Eastern

Friday, May 21, LIVE Zoom starts at 2pm Eastern
2-4pm: Workshopping poems: Group discussion of poems

Week 6
Monday, May 24, LIVE Zoom starts at 1:45pm Eastern
1:45-2pm: Optional informal meet and greet for Week 6
2-3pm: Workshopping poems
3-4pm: Sample poems, give assignment #6, and brief Q & A

Wednesday, May 26
Submissions DUE by 6pm Eastern

Friday, May 28, LIVE Zoom starts at 2pm Eastern
2-4pm: Workshopping poems: Group discussion of poems

Week 7 * Please note special schedule
Tuesday, June 1, LIVE Zoom starts at 1:45pm Eastern
1:45-2pm: Optional informal meet and greet for Week 6
2-3pm: Workshopping poems
3-4pm: Sample poems, give assignment #6, and brief Q & A

Thursday, June 3
Submissions DUE by 6pm Eastern

Friday, June 4, LIVE Zoom starts at 2pm Eastern
2-4pm: Workshopping poems: Group discussion of poems

Week 8 *Please note special submission date to prepare for final celebration
Saturday, June 5
Submissions DUE by 6pm Eastern

Monday, June 7, LIVE Zoom starts at 2pm Eastern
2-4pm: Celebration and CHOICE POEM discussion

Friday, June 11, LIVE Zoom starts at 2 pm Eastern
2-4pm: Celebration and CHOICE POEM discussion

Resources

Sample exercise: A Writing Exercise to Ignite Your Inner Muse
5 Ways to Reclaim Your Creative Joy
Step Away From Your Manuscript & Shake Things Up With Writers’ Bingo
Breaking Through Those Creative Blocks

From Gail: books about writing poems:

• The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms, edited by Ron Padgett
• The Practice of Poetry, Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn & Chase Twichell
• The Poet’s Companion by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux

Testimonials

“Gail is an accomplished poet and writer, but she also has the gift to teach, encourage, and inspire. She made many forms of poetry accessible to us through example, through readings and discussions of form, and through our attempts. She responded to our work constructively, brilliantly, which gave me the courage to write and to share with the group. 5 STARS!”

“I learned so much about poetic meter and how it can be used in my prose writing, as well as in writing poetry.”