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Creative Reading: A Poetry Craft Class with Sean Singer via Zoom


The purpose of a writing class is to learn how to read better as much as it is to write better. Creative reading is as essential as creative writing, yet this phrase is never used. If everyone could read better and more creatively it would help both readers and writers. The reader is the stunt double for the writer. The reader tries to understand the writer’s intention and find openings to enter the poem. The writer is the stunt double for the reader. The writer tries to anticipate how a possible reader will encounter the poem sometime in the future. Practicing the skills of the reader while writing and those of the writer while reading reinforce these skills.

NB: This new course is a craft class (not a workshop) of guided readings of poems along with generative prompts in response to them. Readings will reflect underrated and overlooked poets of the 20th century. This class will offer challenging readings and writing assignments that work together to increase capacities in both areas. This class will be capped at 15 students and take place six consecutive Thursday evenings on Zoom from July 15th-August 19.

Registration for this 6week series is $320. Please register at:
Creative Reading: A Poetry Craft Class with Sean Singer via Zoom | Hudson Valley Writers Center

This craft class will be taught via Zoom. Link will be sent at the time of registration. Please check spam / promotions folders and write to ask@writerscenter.org if you do not receive the link.

PDF documents of all readings will be provided. Readings include: Lorine Niedecker, Tadeusz Różewicz, Tomas Tranströmer, Russell Edson, Georg Trakl, Wanda Coleman, Joanne Kyger, Bob Kaufman, Melvin Dixon, Osama Alomar, Arthur Sze, Miklós Radnóti, Friederike Mayröcker, Zbigniew Herbert, Miroslav Holub, and Lynda Hull.

Instructor Sean Singer was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1974. He is the author of Discography (Yale University Press, 2002), winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; Honey & Smoke (Eyewear Publishing, 2015); and Today in the Taxi (forthcoming, Tupelo Press, 2022); and two chapbooks, Passport (Beard of Bees Press, 2007) and Keep Right on Playing Through the Mirror Over the Water (Beard of Bees Press, 2010).

He has a BA in English with honors from Indiana University, Bloomington (1997), an MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis (1999), and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Rutgers-Newark (2013).

He is the recipient of an Artist’s Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His poems appear in many anthologies including A Face to Meet the Faces, Music’s Spell: Poems about Music and Musicians, Jazz Poems, and Callaloo: The Best of Callaloo Poetry. He was guest editor of Locuspoint: New York CityHe has taught creative writing and a variety of interdisciplinary courses at Hunter College, SUNY Binghamton, Northern Arizona University, Barnard College, and Rutgers-Newark. He lives in Ossining, New York.

Event Location and Ticket Information

Date: Thursday, August 19, 2021
Times: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Ticket pricing:

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Presenter: Hudson Valley Writers Center
Presenter Phone: 9143325953