Experimental poetry begins with the commitment to invent rather than the urge to express (though expression occurs, inevitably). In this course we’ll begin by writing simple acrostics, and then move on to homolinguistic and homophonic translations, between-the-lines poems, inside-the-letters poems, “procedural” poems (where constraint rules the day), conceptual poems, torn poems, found poems, appropriated poems, shuffled and color-wheel and mixed-genre poems and more, all in an attempt to break through normative ego-based composition (while fully acknowledging that we all have egos that are here to stay) and to travel paths we can’t quite find without such experiments. Participants may find that after this class, they will continue to discover new territories with or without experimental rules in place. This course includes both reading (Bernadette Mayer, Jackson Mac Low, Susan Howe, bpNichol, Caroline Bergvall) and writing of poetry, and requires a willing and adventurous spirit and an open mind. Appropriate for writers of all levels of experience.

Charles Alexander is poet, publisher, book artist, and teacher. He poetry books include Certain Slants (Junction Press, 2007), near or random acts (Singing Horse Press, 2004), Pushing Water: parts one through six (Standing Stones Press, 1998), Etudes: D & D (Quarry Press, 1997), Four Ninety Eight to Seven (Meow Press, 1996), and arc of light | dark matter (Segue Books, 1992). He is the founder and director of Chax Press, one of the only independent presses that specializes in innovative poetry and book arts. He teaches at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Pima Community College, and the UA Poetry Center.

A portion of the proceeds will go to the UA Foundation/Creative Writing Program Fund for Excellence, which provides financial support to graduate students in the Creative Writing program at the University of Arizona.

You want to finally try to get that poem, story, or essay published. Or maybe you’re already submitting your work, but want to do it better and smarter. In either case, you have burning questions: What are the steps from dusty and drafty to polished and published? How do you know when a piece of writing is ready for publication? What’s the deal with publishing online? Is self-publishing a good alternative? How do you find the editors, publishers, and agents who will be interested in your work? And what’s the etiquette of approaching these mystical creatures once you’ve found them? In this evening seminar, you’ll learn insider information, get your questions answered, and come a few steps closer to becoming a published writer.

Ander Monson is publisher and editor, a professor of nonfiction at the UA in the Creative Writing program, and a technophile whose work in electronic media gives him a valuable perspective into the future of publishing. Monson writes in multiple genres. He is author of two nonfiction books, Vanishing Point (Graywolf Press, 2010) and Neck Deep and Other Predicaments (Graywolf Press, 2007); a novel, Other Electricities (Sarabande Books, 2005); and a two books of poetry, The Available World (Sarabande Books, 2010) and Vacationland (Tupelo Press, 2005), along with a decoder wheel, chapbooks, broadsides, an extensive website, and other media. He is the founder and editor of DIAGRAM, one of the first online literary journals. Monson is also the founder and editor of New Michigan Press. Find him online at otherelectricities.com.

Students of this course are strongly encouraged to attend the February 22 reading by John D’Agata at the Poetry Center.

In the introduction to an issue of the Seneca Review dedicated to the lyric essay, editors Deborah Tall and John D’Agata wrote, “The lyric essay partakes of the poem in its density and shapeliness, its distillation of ideas and musicality of language. It partakes of the essay in its weight, in its overt desire to engage with facts, melding its allegiance to the actual with its passion for imaginative form.”

In this class we’ll read lyric essays by a range of authors, including (but not limited to) Jenny Boully, John D’Agata, Fanny Howe, Anne Carson, Eula Biss, Carole Maso, Albert Goldbarth, Annie Dillard, and Thalia Field. We will consider how the lyric essay functions, how it is distinct from other forms such as the prose poem, and why hybridity is currently popular in the world of literature. We will consider the history of the form. We will also write (both in and out of class) and share our writing with each other. We will begin with a series of writing exercises to accompany our reading and discussion; as the course progresses, our goal will be to write a draft of a short lyric essay, and to workshop the essays in class. Finally, as feasible, one or more class visits by published authors will provide additional perspectives on the lyric essay. This course is open to writers of all levels of experience.

Arianne Zwartjes’ first book, The Surfacing of Excess, won Eastern Washington University’s 2009 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry and is forthcoming in January 2010. Her 2008 chapbook of prose poems, (Stitched) A Surface Opens: Essays, was published by Diagram/New Michigan Press, and her writing has appeared in literary magazines including The Pinch, Cue, Caketrain, Front Porch, Diagram, Blue Fifth Review, and Word for/Word. Zwartjes teaches in the English department at the University of Arizona; she is also an EMT and wilderness medicine instructor, and has just completed a book-length collection of lyric essays entitled (Detailing Trauma).

Join internationally recognized poet and teacher Anne Waldman for an exciting foray into what she deems “experiments of attention” which will include a discussion of writing practices highlighting work with dreams, memory, performance, investigative poetics and invented forms. We will explore several writing exercises that focus on the erasure of the dominant first person “I,” to practices that involve cut-up and collaboration with one other, and to the creation of an oral “narrative” litany. This class is for beginners as well as active accomplished writers.

Recommended reading: Manatee/Humanity by Anne Waldman (Penguin Poets 2009)

Anne Waldman is the former director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery and co-founder with Beat legend Allen Ginsberg of the Jack Kerouac School at Buddhist- inspired Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She has taught and inspired generations of writers in the investigative and experimental tradition for many years. A Distinguished Professor of Poetics at Naropa University as well as a Buddhist and cultural activist, she brings a vast array of gnosis and experience to working with the writer’s mind. Waldman is the author of over 40 books, including Fast Speaking Woman, Vow to Poetry, Marriage: A Sentence, two volumes of the IOVIS project which takes on war and patriarchy as its themes, In the Room of Never Grieve and Outrider. Her long hybrid poem Manatee/Humanity has just been published by Penguin Poets (2009).

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love, recently gave a wonderful lecture on the subject of creativity. In her talk, she described the ancient Roman concept of creativity: “a divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source for distant and unknowable reasons. The Romans called that disembodied creative spirit a genius.”

This poetry writing workshop is designed to bring you into more frequent encounters with your genius. We’ll spend a lot of time doing writing exercises such as Postcard Secrets, American Sentences, Notes to the Future, and more. We’ll journal and talk about fear of failure. We’ll read poems from Keats and Sappho to Billy Collins and Kay Ryan as a starting point for putting our own words together in new ways. We’ll talk about elements of surprise, syntax, and structure. Kim Addonizio’s new writer's handbook, Ordinary Genius, will serve as the text for this fresh approach to our writing process.

Geraldine Connolly has written three collections of poetry: Hand of the Wind (2009), Province of Fire (1998), and Food for the Winter (1990). She has won many prizes for her work, including two NEA Creative Writing Fellowships, the Carolyn Kizer prize from Poetry Northwest, a Maryland Arts Council Fellowship, the Margaret Bridgman Fellowship to Breadloaf, and the National Ekphrastic Poetry Competition Prize.

Studio Hour: Oracular Writing
with Annie Guthrie
Wednesdays, April 7 through May 26
12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Tuition: $75

Using the principle of consultation, participants will have the chance to distract the analytical mind and develop freedom in their writing practice. Since writing is so often fed by our direct experiences in the world, we can see creativity as a partnership with what we see, feel and absorb as skilled observers and expert feelers. In this spirit, we will strive to refresh our sensitivity to our experiences, and writing exercises will encourage new identities as writers – we will become pamphleteers, flâneure, literary djs, hack philosphers, codebreakers, sound collagists... whatever it takes to stir and restore the writer to his/her craft.

Annie Guthrie is a writer, jeweler, and artist. She holds an MFA in poetry and has poems published in various journals including Ploughshares, Fairy Tale Review, H_NGM_N, Many Mountains Moving, In Posse Review, Tarpaulin Sky and EAOGH.  She works in graphic design and marketing for the Poetry Center and designs book covers for Tarpaulin Sky.