poetry. summer 2010.
Master Poetry
10 Wednesdays, 7:00-10:00pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins September 15th.
Are you ready to take your poetry to the next level? Are you willing to take risks and engage in serous revision? In this workshop we will deepen our understanding of how a poem works, looking at image, diction and form in a range of contemporary poets and applying what we learn to our own poems. We will also discuss placement of poems in journals and meet with an editor of a local literary journal. This class is limited to nine students and is by submission only. Previous workshop experience is highly recommended. To submit to this class, please send 3-5 poems with a brief description of any workshop or class experience you’ve had to chip@grubstreet.org by noon on Friday, September 3rd. (ONLY ADMITTED STUDENTS MAY REGISTER. Cost: $455/$430 members.)
- Instructor: Wendy Mnookin
Wendy Mnookin's fourth book of poems, The Moon Makes Its Own Plea, was published by BOA Editions in 2008. Her previous collection, What He Took, won the book prize from the New England Poetry Club. She is also the recipient of a Poetry Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She teaches a poetry workshop at Emerson College and has taught courses and workshops for children and adults throughout the Boston area. She received her BA from Radcliffe College and her MFA in Writing from Vermont College. You can find out more at www.wendymnookin.com.
Level: Master 
Type: Full-length Workshop
Registration Deadline: Thursday, September 09, 2010
There are 8 seats available for this course.
register as a member $430.00 register as a non-member $455.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Free-Writing Sunday
Sunday, November 14th, 9:00am-4:00pm, at Grub Street headquarters.
Freewriting is an old trick: set a timer, write whatever comes into your head, and sift through it for gold. This day-long workshop will be built around freewriting—excavations of your subconscious and conscious thoughts—to spark and develop detailed assignments for longer, more polished work. We will work together to construct these assignments, to help you get at what you want to write, your style, your voice, and the genre that best expresses those. Short pieces by contemporary authors in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction will lure us into discussions about voice, form, language, and plot. Individualized assignments will help you combine and expand your freewrites into a stack of promising drafts you can be proud of come Monday.
- Instructor: Jill McDonough
Jill McDonough's poem "Accident, Mass. Ave." recently won a Pushcart prize and made Rachel Maddow cry. Her first book of poems, Habeas Corpus, was published by Salt in 2008. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, Stanford's Stegner program, and elsewhere, she has been teaching writing at the college level and beyond for ten years. Her work appears in Slate, The Threepenny Review, and a lot of other places.
Level: For Everyone
Type: Weekend Workshop
Registration Deadline: Tuesday, November 09, 2010
There are 11 seats available for this course.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Poetry Revision Clinic
Sunday, December 5th, 9:00am-4:00pm, at Grub Street headquarters.
A poem is never finished, wrote Valery, only abandoned. In this workshop, we will spend the day exploring different methods of revision – focusing on such techniques as storyboarding, reconsidering form, and attending to imagery and language. We will also try out a variety of revision protocols that can be used in writing groups. Participants should bring two to three poems (at any stage – from idea to completed draft) that they are interested in revising.
- Instructor: Ben Berman
Ben Berman has a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania. He has received honors from the New England Poetry Club and is a recipient of a 2008 Poetry Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times and has poems published in Salamander, The Cimarron Review, Cream City Review, Connecticut Review and other journals, as well. A former Peace Corps Volunteer and high school English teacher, he now coaches Humanities teachers in the Boston Public Schools.
Level: Intermediate
Type: Weekend Workshop
Registration Deadline: Tuesday, November 30, 2010
There are 11 seats available for this course.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
The Poem and the Idea
Wednesday, December 15th, 7:00-10:00pm, at Grub Street headquarters.
Poems that describe a heron or the moon can be nice, but what sets the one you remember apart from all the rest? Chances are it’s an interesting idea. This seminar will explore poetry as a manifestation of thought, examining the ways in which poems communicate complex ideas (be they overt ideas, diffuse ideas, or meta ideas through conceptualism), the overlapping territory of poetry and philosophy, and the difference between the poetic idea and other modes or tropes, such as imagery, description, narrative, and abstraction. Class time will be divided between lecture, discussion, and in-class reading, with an emphasis on discussion. A reading packet will be distributed, including poems by Rae Armantrout, Anne Carson, Maggie Nelson, Wallace Stevens, and Jon Woodward.
- Instructor: Elisa Gabbert
Elisa Gabbert is the poetry editor of Absent and the author of Thanks for Sending the Engine (Kitchen Press) and The French Exit (Birds LLC). With Kathleen Rooney, she has co-written several collaborative collections, including Don't Ever Stay the Same; Keep Changing (Spooky Girlfriend Press) and That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness (Otoliths). Elisa's poems have appeared in Colorado Review, Diagram, The Laurel Review, Pleiades, Puerto del Sol, Salt Hill, Washington Square, and other journals.
Level: Advanced
Type: Seminar
Registration Deadline: Thursday, December 09, 2010
There are 12 seats available for this course.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Poetry Jam
Monday, August 23rd, 7-10pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Do you want to experiment with writing poetry? Are you looking to get back to those poems you wrote a while ago? Are you in a rut with your writing and in need of a jumpstart to find a fresh approach? Or are you a prose writer who needs to cross train by flexing some poetry muscles? Poets of all levels are welcome in this one night workshop in which we'll experiment with various poetry games, collaborations, and exercises. You'll leave with some seeds of poems, and with a toolbox of writing exercises to help you keep writing on your own. Be prepared to write, collaborate, and have fun.
- Instructor: Rebecca Morgan Frank
Rebecca Morgan Frank’s first book, Little Murders Everywhere, is forthcoming from the Irish press Salmon Poetry, and her second manuscript was selected by Marilyn Hacker as the winner of the Poetry Society of America's 2010 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award for a manuscript-in-progress. Her poems have appeared in Guernica, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Best New Poets 2008, and elsewhere. A graduate of Vassar and Emerson Colleges, she has received fellowships and scholarships from such places as the Virgina Center for Creative Arts, the Writers' Room of Boston, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and she is currently completing her PhD in creative writing and literature through an Elliston fellowship at the University of Cincinnati. She has taught at Emerson and Emmanuel Colleges and currently teaches writing to visual artists in MassArt's low residency MFA program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She also serves as editor-in-chief of the online magazine Memorious.org, which she co-founded in 2004.
Level: For Everyone
Type: Seminar
Registration Deadline: Monday, August 23, 2010
There are 5 seats available for this course.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!