The Poetic Sequence with Patrick Donnelly (via Zoom)

The poetic sequence, a deliberate and considered grouping of poems, has an ancient history. It can be built retroactively with existing poems that were written individually, perhaps over a long period of time. Or it might grow quickly, the poet having realized about some poem “There’s more to say about this.” In some cultures, anthologizers even built sequences using existing poems written by a variety of different authors. (This happened in Japan, and we’ll study a Japanese sequence. In connection with this, there will be some reading and a directed exercise to complete before the class, perhaps 1 hour total.) In this way, a short form—individual poem—expands into a long one—the poetic sequence—using principles of association and progression in almost every case. You’ll leave this class with clear strategies for considering your own poems in a sequence.

Patrick Donnelly is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Little-Known Operas (Four Way Books, 2019) and the forthcoming Willow Hammer (Four Way Books, 2025). Donnelly is director of the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place, Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, NH, now a center for poetry and the arts. Former poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, his poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, Slate, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Yale Review, and many other journals. Donnelly’s translations with Stephen D. Miller of classical Japanese poetry were awarded the 2015-2016 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. Donnelly’s other awards include a U.S./Japan Creative Artists Program Award, an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and an Amy Clampitt Residency Award.