5 Wednesdays, May 18 – June 15, 7-9:30 pm Berkeley
$215 members/$245 others
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COMBO SPECIAL: Raw Writing + Finding a Way In
What are your favorite strategies when you revise your poems? Do you try to make your images clearer and more surprising? Do you experiment with the length of your lines? When you’ve written a draft that isn’t quite working, have you ever tried turning the poem into a sonnet or a villanelle? At times, do you find that you simply don’t know what to do?
“I believe that revision can be exciting and rewarding, even the most enjoyable part of the writing process,” says instructor Ben Jackson. “I will show you a variety of tools and strategies to revise your poems. These strategies will include everything from making creative line edits to entirely re-arranging the parts of a poem. Of course, revision can also be frustrating, and I will provide lessons that speak to the challenges and surprises that any poet is bound to encounter.
“Come to this workshop prepared to get feedback on your own poems while also offering guidance to your classmates on their writing. By the end of the five weeks you will find a ton of new ways to revise your poems, whether you are a beginning or a published poet.”
Ben Jackson has taught creative writing to students from the second grade up to the college level. A graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA Program, he currently teaches literature at the University of San Francisco. His work has appeared in New England Review, Hudson Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, The Journal, and elsewhere. His awards include the 2015 Robinson Jeffers Tor House Poetry Prize as well as residencies from Vermont Studio Center, Jentel Artist Residency Program, and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts.