WY171 The Poetry Playground: A Beginner's Journey

The Poetry Playground: A Beginner's Journey

 “A poet is, before anything else, a     person who is passionately in love with   language.”     W. H. Auden

Course Description:

If you’re passionate about, and fascinated by, words—from their deep meanings to their unique sounds to their typography on the page—but you've been intimidated by poetry, this three-hour workshop is for you.

We will look at a variety of poems, ranging in dates from a seventeenth-century sonnet by William Shakespeare to Diane Seuss’ un-rhymed sonnets published in 2021. We will also study free verse and its rich and long history, with examples including Emily Dickinson, Guillaume Apollinaire, John Keats, Sylvia Plath, and William Carlos Williams. We’ll discuss fundamental elements of poetry including structure, style and tone, voice, theme, sound and imagery.

Finally, we will use some of the poems as departure points for two prompts to get you writing.

Join us for a passionate and in-depth introduction to poetry—what it is and how it is—and share inspirations both on and off the page.

About the Instructor: 

Heather Hartley’s poetry collections include Adult Swim and Knock Knock, both published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. She was Paris Editor for Tin House magazine for over fifteen years.

Her short fiction, poems, essays and interviews have appeared in or on PBS Newshour, The Guardian, The Literary Review and other venues. She teaches creative writing at the University of Kent’s (UK) Paris School of Arts and Culture and has also taught at the American University of Paris and the University of Texas El Paso MFA program.

www.heatherhartleyink.com