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Surprise the Line: 8-Week Generative Forms
Surprise the Line, hosted by Nancy Lynée Woo, presents an 8-week generative poetry workshop focused on playing with poetic forms! Whether you love or hate writing in form, you'll be good-naturedly challenged to expand your horizons and flex your poetic muscles by writing within some level of formal structure. All experience levels welcome! For those of you who have taken this class with me before, I've got lots of new prompts for you this time!
Why Write Poetry in Form?
Each week, we'll explore a different type of poetic form, or structure, for writing a poem. Modern, contemporary poetry is often free verse, and this is great, allowing an endless amount of freedom. However, even free verse poets can benefit from practicing writing in form. Formal structures vary, but they often place some beneficial restrictions on the poem, like number of lines, repeating words or lines, rhyme scheme, meter, or other patterns.
Writing in form not only helps us pay more attention to the words we're using and how we're using them, but forces us to consider our auditory rhythms, the pacing on the page, and the strength of our images. Poems, even free-verse, want to have a musicality about them, and we can learn how to do this more naturally in our free verse poems by practicing in form. KEY WORD: PRACTICE!
The goal of this class is not necessarily to master any one particular form, but to expose you to many different methods of writing, and this will lead you to new discoveries about your writing--guaranteed! To master anything, you must practice, A LOT. Consider this an invitation to practice writing poetry in a fun, encouraging environment with others doing the same thing, where there are no wrong answers, only new discoveries. This mindset is a key part of every Surprise the Line workshop: we get together to have a good time experimenting.
And for those of us who enjoy playing with form, you will enjoy the new poetic forms I've added to this round! Even if you've tried your hand at some of these before, you can learn something new every time.
Lots of modern poets do some really interesting things with formal structures--either by challenging them, changing them, or otherwise making them their own. I'll be bringing in examples of how modern poets are turning centuries-old structures into their playground, and making some really moving art as they do it.
Trust me, it's great fun!
What you can expect:
✓ Structured & supportive writing environment
✓ Respectful group discussions about process
✓ Weekly lessons & handouts with example poems
✓ Explanations and templates to help you
✓ Productive feedback with dedicated close readers
✓ Sensitivity to your work & encouraging your voice
✓ Curiosity rather than commands
How the workshop is set up
Each week will include a lesson on a different poetic form or structure, including a printed packet with examples, prompt, and template. I'll explain the form, we'll discuss it, and you'll go home and write in that form, then bring the new draft in next week. We'll talk about the history of the form, some topics that work well with it, and do a light brainstorm when possible, so you leave with a starting point. We'll share poems with each other in a light critique setting. The focus is really on producing new work, sharing discoveries, and giving productive feedback to each other. Every person will have a chance to read their poem every week. I'll send out a follow up email after each class with the prompt in case anyone is absent.
The goal of this workshop is to equip each poet with valuable tools for poetic mastery, while having fun, building community and enjoying the creative process. I bring community guidelines to the first meeting to make sure we can all respect the space and each other. It is such a gift to be in workshop with kind people reading our work. If anyone has questions or concerns about that, or if you want to see the guidelines before signing up, please feel free to email me at nancywoowriter@gmail.com.
Motivating Philosophy: Structure allows room for experimentation. Add elements of craft to your unique aesthetic, stir, and see what happens. Taking our work seriously doesn’t mean taking ourselves too seriously! Invite surprise onto the page. Have fun! Poetry is discovery. Curiosity over commands. Respect is key. What else is there to do but create?
My teaching philosophy is that we're all learning and we all have something to offer each other, so I am less "top down" than "circular." I do the work to give us a lesson, but everyone's voice and experience can be beneficial to us all. So your opinions and your responses to what we're doing is highly valued. While this particular class has a teaching component, I consider myself more a facilitator of the group environment.
Workshop Dates and Topics
***Keep in mind there are often many innovative ways to approach these, so consider the formal structure a starting point for your interpretation. Our focus is not on being perfect but getting some interesting writing done. Even if you end up writing a different poem than the form, whatever you write is what you're meant to write. Take this as you wish: you may wish to write very strictly or very loosely.
Week 1 - Thursday January 9: Intro/Erasure- Bring in any poem you like to share with the group to express you writing style, voice, or current interests. (Not a deep critique.) Also, bring in a printed page of any text that you don't mind "destroying." We'll do an erasure exercise in class, and leave you with a prompt to go deeper at home. Starting off fun and "easy" to get us warmed up. Erasure poems are new poems created from the found text of another piece of writing.
Week 2 - Thursday January 16: Sestina- If you've ever taken a workshop with me before, you'll know I love sestinas. So in my previous forms workshop, this was our highest challenge point but in this workshop, it's our launching point! A sestina is a poem with 6 primary stanzas and a concluding stanza featuring 6 rotating end words in a pattern.
Week 3 - Thursday January 23: Villanelle- A villanelle is a 19-line poem with repeating lines in a scaffolding pattern, often very good for exploring the nature of obsessions.
Week 4 - Thursday, January 30: Pantoum- A pantoum is another poem with repeating, scaffolding lines, and the poem can be of any length. The poem weaves down the page, creating an echo-like effect.
Week 5 - Thursday, February 6: Sonnet- We all know sonnets! But Shakespeare wasn't the only one who wrote sonnets, and we can learn a lot from modern sonnets. A sonnet is a 14-line poem with alternating rhyme scheme concluding with a couplet.
Week 6 - Thursday, February 13: Ghazal- New for me! Let's play with a ghazal. This is a 5+ line poem with both a repeating end word and internal rhyme, made up of independent couplets. It ends with a volta, addressing yourself as the author of the poem.
Week 7 - Thursday, February 20: Contrapuntal- And we'll hit our finale with one of the most interesting and challening forms out there (IMO). A contrapuntal is essentially three poems in one, with two columns that can be read down as well as across. I find these exceptionally difficult! We will definitely learn something in trying it.
Week 8 - Thursday, February 27: Conclusion/Portfolio- Last round of feedback, discoveries, check ins. What does your portfolio show you about yourself as a writer? What was the most interesting, most challenging, most fun?
TBD Sometimes we have another informal meeting to get together and hang out without a critique workshop, like a submissions workshop. IF we want to do that, date and location TBD. Always a good time.
Class Fee and Location
Location:
First Friends Church
13205 Philadelphia St.
Whittier, CA 90601
Street parking is free and plentiful. We have a great big community room with long tables to facilitate our revision process. Because the church is letting us use this room, at the last two meetings, I will pass around a collection hat for anyone who is able to contribute some cash for their facilities.
FULL VALUE: $240 ($30 per class)
Because I don't wish for anyone to be excluded from attending this workshop, I will offer a sliding scale to anyone who wants to attend. If you want to be here, I want you here.
Sliding scale: Please consider valuing the workshop at least $15 per class ($120-$240).
I am experimenting with alternative models of doing business! Before, I've experimented with setting a price and offering a sliding scale. This time, I am doing the same thing. You can decide what you want to pay based on what meets YOUR needs, your budget, and your level of investment.
This does not mean free. If you can easily pay the full value, please do! This helps create access for others (students, underemployed, working artists, etc.) to attend the class at the level that suits their current cash flow. One of the things I love about the arts community is that it is so diverse, so full of people from all different stations in life, backgrounds, and experiences. We all value each other, and I believe art transcends economic barriers. If you are an artist, you are an artist. Let's create a warm, welcoming environment for us all to learn from each other.
My goal is to make this a fulfilling artistic experience with the door open to everyone who wants it, while still allowing me to value my own time, skills, experience and expertise. I trust you, you trust me. I want you to feel GOOD about what you are giving and what you are receiving.
Because I am leaving the door completely open this time, and this is a generative workshop where we'll be reading first drafts and focusing on the process, I am not going to put a hard cap on number of participants. A general maximum is 10-12 so there's enough time for everyone to read every week.
NOTE: If it's possible, can you please send payment via Venmo or PayPal (Friends and Family) instead of Eventbrite? (Reduces the fees for both of us and helps me get the money faster.) Then I'll send you a registration confirmation manually. Venmo:
If there is still room, you may bring cash or check on the first day. Please check with me about how many we have signed up. Thanks!
Read reviews from past workshop attendees:
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Questions? Email nancywoowriter@gmail.com.
I look forward to exploring forms with you!
