Iowa Summer Writing Festival


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Workshop Descriptions & Instructors Faith Adiele Mary Allen Kate Aspengren Thomas Fox Averill Nancy Barry Timothy Bascom Linda Bendorf Venise Berry Bruce Bond Michael Dennis Browne Susan Taylor Chehak John Dalton Thomas K. Dean Amber Dermont Kelly Dwyer Hope Edelman Josh Emmons Katie Ford Patricia Foster Laura Fraser Cecile Goding Douglas Goetsch Kevin González John Griesemer Sands Hall Christine Hemp Jim Heynen Rick Hillis Charles Holdefer Richard Jackson Cheryl Fusco Johnson Wayne Johnson Bret Anthony Johnston Daniel Khalastchi Zachary Lazar Carolyn Lieberg BK Loren Fritz Mc Donald James McKean Gordon Mennenga Katherine Min Sharelle Byars Moranville Michael Morse Barbara Robinette Moss Marc Nieson Shannon Olson Lon Otto Juliet Patterson Anjali Sachdeva Sarah Saffian Sam Samuels Leslie Schwartz Sandra Scofield Mary Kay Shanley Carol Spindel Karen Subach Mary Vermillion Ashley Warlick Jan Weissmiller Bart Yates	Juliet Patterson Riding The Horse Backwards: Poetry Revision As A Creative State One-Week Workshop June 8–13 Squaring The Circle: The Prose Poem One-Week Workshop June 15–20 Density, Details, Lists: Exercises In Poetry Weekend Workshop June 21–22 Biography Riding The Horse Backwards: Poetry Revision As A Creative State One-Week Workshop June 8–13 The most exhilarating, and therefore treacherous, moment in a poem’s making comes when the first draft is done. As Elizabeth Bishop said, “What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration.” Seeing oneself anew, re-envisioning the predicament out of which the poem grew, gives it more, not less, to draw upon. This course will take you through lots of tricks for looking at your old poems in new ways and will supply you with a whole toolbox of revising options. We’ll try them all out, then talk about which ones worked best for you and why. We will share work with each other each session, and there will be extensive discussion, but we will not be formally critiquing poems. Bring a pair of scissors, tape and three copies of 6-7 poems you’d like to take a fresh look at, but don’t reread them before the class begins (!). Squaring The Circle: The Prose Poem One-Week Workshop June 15–20 The result of two (seemingly) contradictory impulses—prose and poetry—the prose poem is a strange and often unwieldy creature, as delicate as an urchin dahlia or a seedless watermelon. In this course, we’ll explore a variety of contemporary prose poems and hybrids, reading work by a wide variety of writers. Paying close attention to language, drama, and continuity in the poems we read, we’ll wrestle with our ideas of what prose and poetry really are and experiment with the fertile ground in-between. In-class writing exercises will also get you thinking about the possibilities at play in this unique form. This is a generative course. Although we will read our work out loud everyday, we will not have formal workshop, except during individual conference you have with me during the week. This course is designed for poets and also for prose writers who’d like to work more deeply on the level of language or who might be interested in shorter form(s). Please plan to send 3-5 poems or 5 pages of prose prior to your arrival. Density, Details, Lists: Exercises In Poetry Weekend Workshop June 21–22 In this workshop, we will study intricately detailed and abundant poems from Federico Garcia Lorca to Frank O’Hara and Lisa Jarnot, discussing techniques and trying out strategies in a variety of exercises. We will look at three kinds of poems—imagistic, ecstatic and catalog verse—asking questions about the importance of detail in poetry, as well as discussing the function of the line, sound and rhythm, repetition, continuity, and surprise. We’ll work with variations on the list form to deepen our practice in poetry and experiment with a variety of writing “warm-ups” to help you generate, articulate, and approach specific problems. This is a generative class designed for students who are interested in generating material to push themselves in new directions. 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 or are forthcoming 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 July 17, 2008