How Line Breaks Work with Erin Hoover via Zoom

Lineation is one of poetry’s foundational craft elements, impacting nearly every aspect of a poem, from how it looks and sounds to what it means. Some of us understand line breaks intuitively when we begin writing poetry; some of us have been told to break on “important” words or where you might naturally pause when reading aloud.  This intensive craft class builds on those ideas to consider the poetic line “a unit of experience,” as Dana Levin has called it. Together, we will look at how other poets have used line break to expand our understanding of the line’s potential. We will also practice using different kind of line break in our work and see how they change our interaction with language, as well as alter the reader’s perception of our words.  While resisting a formulaic interpretation, I hope that we will develop a taxonomy of possibilities for the line.

NB: This class will be capped at 15. You will receive a link as soon as you register to the email address you use to enroll in the class. Please check spam if you do not receive it. You will be sent a reminder email with the link 24 hours before class. Please read our policy page before registering. Scholarship information for this class will be available in November.

Registration is $124 at:
www.writerscenter.org/calendar/hooverline/

Erin Hoover is the author of Barnburner, selected by Kathryn Nuernberger for Elixir Press’s Antivenom Poetry Award and winner of a Florida Book Award in Poetry. Barnburner was named a “favorite poetry book of 2018” by Largehearted Boyand by The Adroit Journal and called “a fitting attempt to kick down staid, prim, even academic poetic doors” by Booklist. Hoover’s poems have appeared in journals such as the Cincinnati Review, the Florida Review, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah, and they have been anthologized in Best New Poets and The Best American Poetry.

Hoover teaches poetry at Tennessee Tech University and serves on the executive committee of the C.D. Wright Women Writers Conference. She earned an MFA from University of Oregon and a PhD from Florida State University, where she was editor-in-chief of the Southeast Review.