Instructor:  Kyle D. Craig
Date: 4 Sundays: September 9; October 14; November 11; December 9
Time: 1:00-3:30 p.m.
Location: IWC
Cost: $250 Nonmembers, $160 members, $140 student members/teacher members/senior members/military members/librarian members

This four-session course will explore the poetics of one contemporary poet each month, with the purpose of helping writers learn techniques, styles, and strategies that will help them write their own poems. In addition to studying the intersection of each poet’s life, creative process, and poems, participants will do in-class writing exercises based on the work of each individual poet.

Ada Limón is the author of five books of poetry, including Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award, and one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of the Year by The New York Times. Her newest collection, The Carrying, will be released by Milkweed Editions in August of 2018. Many of her poems integrate the natural world and her own life to explore themes of loss, longing, and resiliency.

Terrance Hayes is the author of six poetry collections, including American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin, How to Be Drawn, which received the 2016 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and Lighthead, which won the 2010 National Book Award for Poetry. His newest work, To Float In The Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight is forthcoming in September 2018. His poetry often considers themes of popular culture, race, music, and masculinity. 

Ellen Bass is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book, Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), was a finalist for The Paterson Poetry Prize, The Publishers Triangle Award, The Milt Kessler Poetry Award, The Lambda Literary Award, and the Northern California Book Award. Her poems often revolve around themes of compassion, humor, and intimacy.

Robert Wrigley is the author of the poetry collections Box (Penguin, 2017),  Anatomy of Melancholy & Other Poems (Penguin, 2013), winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Award; Beautiful Country (Penguin, 2010); Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems (2006); Lives of the Animals (2003), winner of the Poets Prize; Reign of Snakes (1999), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award; and In the Bank of Beautiful Sins (1995), winner of the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award. His poems are often concerned with rural Western landscapes and humankind’s place within the natural world.

Register online or download and print a registration form.

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