Iowa Summer Writing Festival


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Workshop Descriptions & Instructors Marilyn Abildskov Mary Allen Kate Aspengren Thomas Fox Averill Nancy K.Barry Timothy Bascom Kyle Beachy Karen Bender Linda Bendorf Maudy Benz Venise Berry Bruce Bond David Bouchier Michael Dennis Browne Maggie Conroy Mary Cross Thomas K. Dean Amber Dermont Janet Desaulniers Kelly Dwyer Hope Edelman Josh Emmons Jill Esbaum Sarah Fay Hugh Ferrer Katie Ford Geoffrey Forsyth Cecile Goding Douglas Goetsch Sands Hall Christine Hemp Jim Heynen Rick Hillis Charles Holdefer Richard Jackson Rebecca Johns Cheryl Fusco Johnson Wayne Johnson Daniel Khalastchi Carolyn Lieberg BK Loren Peter Markus Fritz Mc Donald James McKean Gordon Mennenga Sharelle Byars Moranville Michael Morse Barbara Robinette Moss Marc Nieson Shannon Olson Diana Ossana Lon Otto Juliet Patterson Kiki Petrosino Mark Jude Poirier Leslie Carol Roberts Anjali Sachdeva Sarah Saffian Sam Samuels Sandra Scofield Mary Kay Shanley Robert Anthony Siegel Carol Spindel Karen Subach Mary Vermillion Kris Vervaecke Ashley Warlick Michelle Wildgen Bart Yates	Juliet Patterson Scrubbing the Engine: Craft and Repair Workshop for Poets One-Week Workshop June 14–19 “A Stretchy Sense of ‘I’”: Dramatic Perspective in Poetry Weekend Workshop June 20–21 Riding the Horse Backwards: A Writing Intensive for Poets One-Week Workshop July 19–24 Biography Scrubbing the Engine: Craft and Repair Workshop for Poets One-Week Workshop June 14–19 In this workshop and revision class, we’ll be following the idea that poetry (as William Carlos Williams said) is “a small machine made of words,” suggesting that while language is probably our most important tool, there are also gears and moving parts. This class is designed to help you recognize the mechanisms in your own brilliant machine and give you a few useful tools for easy maintenance and repair. We’ll consider image, line breaks, metaphor, syntax, diction and form. If we think of these elements as tools we use to build our poems, how might we learn to be more skilled with them? How can we invite them into our creative process? How can we use them in approaching revision? These are a few of the questions we’ll be asking. This class is designed for poets who have had some experience with workshop critique and are interested in deepening their relationship to craft. Participants will be asked to submit five pages of work in advance of the workshop. Plan to bring three additional pages to the workshop for extensive feedback. “A Stretchy Sense of ‘I’”: Dramatic Perspective in Poetry Weekend Workshop June 20–21 In this intensive workshop, we’ll explore the idea of perspective in poems, discussing the strategies involved in persona poems, dramatic monologues, historical narratives, and post-modern techniques of multi-voiced poems. All of these serve to create in our work what Brenda Hillman refers to as a “stretchy sense of I.” Through reading and writing exercises, we’ll ask questions about our choice of perspective: Who’s talking and why? How do we arrive at perspective in poems? How can we deepen our autobiographical material through the use of these techniques? What can shifting perspectives offer to the drama of our work? We’ll read work by Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Dan Beachy-Quick, Ai, Tyehimba Jess, Lucie Brock-Broido and others. This is a largely generative class, designed for students with some previous experience who are looking to deepen their own understanding of their craft. Riding the Horse Backwards: A Writing Intensive for Poets One-Week Workshop July 19–24 In this course, we will focus on a variety of writing exercises designed to free the subconscious and sense of play in the writing process. We will experiment with dreams, free association, chance principles and other methods to generate new work. This workshop is designed for experienced writers who are interested in finding new methods of generating poems and will help those who are overwhelmed, stalled or lost in their writing practice. We will share work with each other each session, but will not be formally critiquing poems. We will also read some work by other poets, including Dean Young, Bob Hickock, Mary Ruefle, Louise Glück, William Stafford and others, but most of our time together will be spent writing. The aim is to encourage you to go beyond your normal writing process. Bring paper, pen and a playful attitude. Biography Juliet Patterson’s first book, The Truant Lover, was selected by Jean Valentine as the 2004 winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and was a 2007 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Her poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Bellingham Review, Bloom, Conduit, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New Orleans Review, The Journal, Verse and other magazines. She is the recipient of a SASE/Jerome fellowship in poetry, a 2004 fellowship with the Institute for Community and Cultural Development through Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, and an arts fellowship from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She teaches poetry and creative writing in Minneapolis through the College of St. Catherine, Hamline University, and The Loft Literary Center.

	Site Map \| Welcome \| Workshops by Session Date \| Workshops by Instructor Workshops by Genre \| Registration & Housing Information \| Registration Form Sponsored by the Division of Continuing Education Iowa Summer Writing Festival C215 Seashore Hall The University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 Phone 319-335-4160 FAX 319-335-4743 iswfestival@uiowa.edu Last updated on February 10, 2009