24PearlStreet Workshops and Events
LIVE via ZOOM: 8:30pm-10:30pm (Eastern)
“You cannot, you cannot use someone else’s fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.” ― Audre Lorde
The poems and poets we love most are often unfettered, unique, and unabashedly themselves. But writing such poems takes courage—to mine your life’s true language and imagery, to delve into your individual psyche and experience, and to trust the structure of your mind to guide the structure of your poems. In this generative workshop, you’ll work with prompts designed to foster courage and elicit your unique gifts as a poet. Looking at work by poets such as Diane Seuss, Rita Dove, Paul Tran, Ilya Kaminsy, Nâzim Hikmet, Kelli Russell Agodon, Elena Karina Byrne, Prince Bush, Ama Codjoe, Chen Chen, Jennifer Gihvan, Lois P. Jones, and Lucille Clifton we’ll explore what makes specific poems feel so alive and vibrant, and we’ll work to identify the most alive and vibrant aspects of each other’s writing.
Prompts and model poems will be available a couple of weeks in advance for anyone who would like to start writing early.
Biography
Melissa Studdard
is the author of the poetry collections, Dear Selection Committee and I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, as well as the chapbook Like a Bird with a Thousand Wings. Her work has been featured by PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, and has appeared in periodicals such as POETRY, Kenyon Review, and New England Review. Her awards include the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, The Penn Review Poetry Prize, the Tom Howard Prize from Winning Writers, the REELpoetry International Film Festival Audience Choice Award, and more.
