Susan Grimm - Week 1 | June 23-27
Ode To Complexity

Forget the shortcut through the woods or zooming in for the spotlit close-up. In this workshop, we’ll write denser, longer poems that don’t stop too soon. We’ll experiment with sensory explosion, intertwined images, multiple voices, historical sweep, and useful digressions. Looking at examples, we’ll find ways to add fruitful complexity to your earlier work, and to write new material. E-mail up to 3 poems by June 7 to sjgrimm@gmail.com.

Susan Grimm is the author of a chapbook, Almost Home; a book of poems, Lake Erie Blue; and editor of a collection of essays, Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems. She has received an Individual Artists Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council, and was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 1999. She has taught at Cleveland State University, and served as editor of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center for three years.

Margaret Gibson - Week 2 | June 30-July 4
I Think That I Shall Never See . . .

A poem as political as a tree?  What? A tree is political?  Drought has a voice? Dirt is inspiring and worthy of notice? This workshop is devoted to learning to see and hear more intimately the many speakers “out there” in the natural world – or in any world.  We will read poems by contemporary poets and write our own, learning to identify the voices that speak to us and through us when we tune in to what’s right under our noses. The point of the workshop is to practice a multi-vocal approach to writing poems based on close observation and personal witness. Each student should bring 13 copies of 1 poem to the first workshop.

Margaret Gibson is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently One Body. Previous books include The Vigil (Finalist, National Book Award in Poetry), Earth Elegy, Icon and Evidence, and Autumn Grasses, all from LSU Press.  A memoir, The Prodigal Daughter, was published in March, 2008, by University of Missouri Press.  She is the recipient of the Lamont Selection, the Melville Cane Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and two Pushcart Prizes. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Connecticut.

Philip Terman - Week 3 | July 7-11
Someone Else To Self:  Using Other Poets for Inspiration

The poet Theodore Roethke wrote an essay, “How to Write Like Somebody Else,” in which he states that “the most original poets are the most imitative.”  He also quotes Eliot’s famous dictum that “bad poets borrow, good poets steal.”  In this class we’ll look at poems by several established poets (mostly contemporary) to discover how they can act as springboards into writing your own poems. Please bring to the first workshop 2-3 of your favorite contemporary poems. You are also welcome to send 3-5 poems by June 15 to Phil Terman, 4606 Scrubgrass Road, Grove City, PA, 16127.

Philip Terman’s most recent book of poems is Rabbis of the Air (Autumn House Press).  His poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry, The Georgia Review, The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, and Blood to Remember: American Poets Respond to the Holocaust.  He teaches Creative Writing and English at Clarion University and co-directs the Chautauqua Writers Festival

Geraldine Connolly - Week 4 | July 14-18
Writing Your Best Poem

This class will be aimed at improving imagery, structure and clarity in your poems. We will explore the interplay of sound and sense, the “so what?” problem, the importance of discovery, and dramatic tension. A careful, line-by-line reading of student work will prevail, coupled with examples from 20th-century masters. No advance submissions.

Geraldine Connolly, the author of Food for the Winter and Province of Fire, has a new book, Hand of the Wind, forthcoming. Her poems and articles have appeared in Poetry, Shenandoah and The Washington Post. She has been awarded two NEA fellowships and the Yeats Prize. She served as editor of Poet Lore and taught at Johns Hopkins and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. Her work appears in many anthologies.

Todd Davis - Week 5 | July 21-25
The Body of Poetry & Poetry of the Body

The one constant of all human life is the fact that we are born into a body where we will reside until departing from this “mortal coil.”  What role does the body play in the writing of poems?  How does our physical experience in that body shape not only the content but the form our poems inhabit?  Together we’ll explore these issues through the close reading of published poets whose work focuses upon the body, and revisions of our own poems relating to this workshop topic. No advance submissions.

Todd Davis teaches creative writing and environmental studies at Pennsylvania State University’s Altoona College.  He is the winner of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize and author of the collections Ripe and Some Heaven.  His poems have been published widely and have been featured by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac and by Ted Kooser in American Life in Poetry.

Philip Brady - Week 6 | July 28-August 1
Sustaining Wonder: Writing the Long Poem

Robert Hass writes that humans “can’t sustain wonder.” Yet that’s the challenge facing the long poem: how to sustain the dynamism beyond the lyric moment. During this week, we will discuss ways to generate longer poems and strategies to keep them going and bring them to resolution. We’ll explore sequence, collage, narrative, meditation, essay, and epic. Whether you’re just contemplating a voyage, or you’ve already set out across the wine-dark sea, this workshop will help shed light on the process whereby poems attempt, against odds, to sustain wonder. No advance submissions.

Philip Brady’s next book, By Heart: Reflections of a Rust-Belt Bard, is forthcoming from University of Tennessee Press. He is the author of three books of poems and a memoir. His work has been awarded five Ohio Arts Council Fellowships, a Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, a Thayer Fellowship, and residencies at Yaddo, Ragdale, Hawthornden Castle, the Headlands, and Fundacion Valparaiso. He directs the Youngstown State University  Poetry Center and Etruscan Press, and plays in the New-Celtic band, Brady's Leap.

Jim Daniels - Week 7 | August 4-8
The ‘I’ in This Poem Isn’t Me

This workshop will explore the issue of writing from your own experience without being stuck with the facts of your life.  Poets at all levels are welcome. We will also be creating new work based on assignments to challenge both beginning and advanced poets. You may also bring works-in-progress to the class. You are welcome to send 1-2 poems by Aug. 1 to Jim Daniels, c/o English Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

Jim Daniels is the author of twenty-two collections of poems, three volumes of fiction, and two screenplays. His most recent books include In Line for the Exterminator, Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies, and Mr. Pleasant, all published in 2007. He directs the Creative Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University.

Terrance Hayes - Week 8 | August 11-15
New Shadows: Moving Poems From Imitation To Innovation

This workshop is intended to help new poets help themselves. It will offer concrete strategies for sustained writing when the only teacher available is a book. We will explore the ways inventive imitation can lead to poetic discovery and innovation. (Think of imitation as transformation, not reproduction.) Daily writing assignments will involve discussing and then imitating published poems from a multitude of styles and traditions. Come prepared to generate and share work written in class. In workshops poems will be discussed not for their merit as imitations, but for their originality and potential. No advance submissions.

Terrance Hayes’ third collection of poems, Wind In A Box (Penguin), was named one of the top 100 books published in 2006 by Publishers Weekly and was also a finalist for the 2007 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. Other honors include a Whiting Writers Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and two Best American Poetry selections. He teaches at Carnegie Mellon University. (photo by W.T. Pfefferle)

Laura Kasischke - Week 9 | August 18-22
Memory & Imagination: The Poem That Writes Itself

In this workshop we will practice methods for exploring memory and using the imagination to find material for poems.  Through exercises and discussion, we’ll examine and discover ways the unconscious might be harnessed for poetry writing. In addition to discussing poems brought in by participants, we will practice a number of new writing processes, with the goal of generating new work during our time together. Expect to learn new approaches which will make poetry writing more effortless and rewarding, to write some things that will surprise you, and to come away with a great deal of new, exciting material with which to continue your work.

Laura Kasischke has published seven collections of poetry, most recently, Lilies Without. She has been the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, several Pushcart Prizes, and the DiCastagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America.  She has also published four novels, and two novels for young adults.  She teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Michigan.