I Want to Write a Poem But Don’t Know How (Workshop)
In my experience, in conversations with friends, family, and acquaintances, I have often been asked what seems to me a very simple question. “Well, how do I write a poem?” The snarky answer is, “Well, you get a pen and a paper and start writing.” While true, the sarcasm there is not helpful to get anyone actually writing, and what I want people to understand is that writing a poem really is not as mysterious and difficult as it’s cracked up to be. Writing a deeply energetic poem that gets remembered in history textbooks is, I would argue, a little more difficult, but really it is the result of practice and luck more than anything. So, in order to demystify this process, and, as the CPL and Cascadia 2050 missions say, “empower people to practice poetry…” we are hosting this workshop that will get into the first steps that can get any person writing poems they can be proud of. Brenda Hillman says that, “to be a poet you only need 3 readers, and one of them can be a tree.” And that is the energy we will be trying to capture and share at this workshop, which will hopefully be the first of many.
