There has been a profound sense of shift from the ways in which we thought about and experienced life before this global period of pandemic and uncertainty.

As we try to find balance in this in-between place that is no longer the world we knew but that isn’t clearly yet the world we’ll emerge into, what questions are we asking and how do these affect our sense of how we process experience in language, as poets? How can poems help us to build a new lexicon, imagine a possible world, and new ways of working in and describing it?

In this workshop, we will read and write poems that attempt to answer these questions. We’ll draw inspiration from them, and use ideas from multidisciplinary and multi-genre sources, including but not limited to science, climate science, literature, the news, music, history, art, film etc.

Perhaps we work more now from a sense of loss, even grief. Perhaps we feel as if we’re looking at fragments and debris—things that seem to have fallen out of “the jaw of a beast made of lost things” (Ocean Vuong). But out of this work of collage and cobbling together, our goal will be to use the poem as rune, map, lightning rod, spirit level, or suspension bridge to make our way to new visions and generate new material.

Class work will consist of student writing and workshop exchange. We will read and try new things in order to envision possibilities and directions for future poems.

Please note: This class is an online class. To participate, students must have a stable internet connection and a computer or device with a webcam and microphone.