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Poetry Manuscripts: What is the Function of Poetry? with Sean Singer via Zoom


This course will focus on five books of poetry that show the range of poetic expression in five poets, along with one important craft book. Poetry is a craft and a practice, and it begins with listening.

Students in this course will learn to apply specific craft skills, notions of artistic choice-making, and intention to their own poems, to build the capacity for creative reading, and improve reading and writing poetry within the fabric of one’s own life.

As a reader meeting a poem on its terms means being on an equal plane with the poet. You are confronting the poem which is an aspect of the poet when they finished the poem. You are also confronting the self, as you are when the poem is at hand.

We don’t always need the tenderest words or the heaviest, but the truest, or the ones that identify and articulate the possibility of change and difference. Within the dark wood, said Dante, where the straight way is lost, we look for poetry.

Texts:
Coleman, Wanda. Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems. David R. Godine, 2020.
Hugo, Richard. The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing. Norton, 2010. Matejka, Adrian. Somebody Else Sold the World. Penguin, 2021.
Melnick, Lynn. Refusenik. YesYes Books, 2022.
Popa, Vasko. Selected Poems. New York Review Books, 2019.

Class will take place on Jun 30, July 7, 14, 21, 28, and Aug 4. It will be taught via Zoom. The Zoom link will be sent at the time of registration, as well as in the day prior to class. Please email admin@writerscenter.org with questions.

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 (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 4, 2022 - Friday, August 5, 2022
Times: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Ticket pricing:

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Presenter: Hudson Valley Writers Center
Presenter Phone: 914.332.5953
Presenter Website: www.writerscenter.org