Poetry Workshop: The Leap in Narrative Poetry with Anton Yakovlev

What happens when a poem that follows a cohesive narrative takes an unexpected turn into startling metaphorical territory, with imagery that seems to come out of nowhere? How can surprise and disorientation help usher in the experience of epiphany and deeper insight? What are the creative purposes of this technique? What are the different types of imaginative leap a poet might employ? In this workshop we will examine classic and contemporary poems that use the leap in a narrative context, and apply the creative strategies discussed in workshop in a writing exercise to generate our own original poems.