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Come take the poetic leap and discover how poetry lifts off from surprising places to land on new ground. Each session offers analysis and discussion of model poems, optional in-class critique, and exercises that help you write your way into your greatest leaps yet.
How does a poet take the poetic leap? Here are some hints:
Week 1 - Writing Strategies: The Leap from Idea to Image
When good poetry lifts off the page, it’s because the image is grounded. If you can't see, hear, smell, touch or taste it, it's not an image--and it's probably not good poetry! Why?
We live in detail, and poetry thrives on it: “Images haunt. There is a whole mythology built on this fact: Cezanne painting till his eyes bled. Wordsworth wandering the Lake County hills in an impassioned daze. Blake describes it very well, and so did the colleague of Tu Fu who said to him, ‘It is like being alive twice.’” (Robert Hass)
But details by themselves don't give a poem leverage. The best descriptions aspire to something greater, and allow the reader to “see” an idea in a fresh way: “You must become an ignorant man again / And see the sun again with an ignorant eye / And see it clearly in the idea of it.” (Wallace Stevens)
Week 2 - Writing Strategies: Bridging the Gap with Metaphor
When we have the urge to claim, "A is like B," we're not just making a comparison. We're taking a leap, and that leap takes place in gap between A and B. There's where the energy lies: the greater the gap, the greater the leap, the greater the pleasure of insight.
Too small of a leap, too little insight. Too large, and the poem becomes obscure. What's the right balance? If we keep adding metaphors, does a poem become imaginative, or just confusing?
Robert Frost says writing is about, "kicking ourselves from one chance suggestion to another … as of a hot afternoon in the life of a grasshopper. Theme alone can steady us down." Metaphor can help a writer hold onto theme without letting go, even while making the most surprising of leaps.
Week 3 - Writing Strategies: The Far Reach of Paradox
Paradox makes its leap in the most unexpected ways and over the widest gaps. It travels across opposites and brings them together, finding terror in beauty, joy in sadness, wisdom in foolishness.
Use paradox to invite surprise, tension, depth and dimension to your poetry. Your writing will be more imaginative and energetic. How? Coleridge says that the imagination, "reveals itself in the balance of opposite(s)."
Paradox also prevents sentimentality. “Truth and beauty live most happily amid complexity and paradox.” (Jane Hirshfield) Rilke offers an example that’s both deep and far-reaching when he declares, "beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror."
Together we'll leap gaps, bound over hurtles and make way for our greatest insights to lift our poetry off the page.
"Angela's materials and dedication to covering the contents of the course were superb. She sometimes left me breathless. Her critique of work was thoughtful and very helpful." – Edward Moersfelder
"I can only describe this as 'controlled spontaneity' of class conversations in which there was a rich cross-pollination. I came away inspired to go back and look at my poems with a new attitude, and to create my coming poems with new skills." – Daniel Kunene, Madision, WI
"The handouts are full of information that I am able to take with me and refer back to." – Trisha Day, Oregon WI
"The handouts were excellent. Also, Angela is, as always, extremely specific in critiques, and balances support with deft criticism. Her attention to craft is extremely helpful..." – Richard Mereleman, Madison, WI
"Well-planned by Angela... A really creative atmosphere!" – Kathleen Phillips, Waukesha, WI
"Such a great workshop--everything was so new, thought provoking, challenging, inspiring. I am ready to up the ante in my poetry writing....I have so much new material to explore..." – Bo Mackison, Madison, WI
"...this was a fresh and energetic class, and I know my poetry will be the better for it." – Eve Robillard, Madison, WI
How to register:
By phone: Call 608-262-7942.
By mail: Print and mail the UW Continuing Studies registration form.
By fax: Print and fax the UW Continuing Studies registration form.
Online:
Secure online registration is available for this program.
The Department of Liberal Studies & the Arts is a part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Continuing Studies. The units within Continuing Studies provide continuing education programs for lifelong learners, from precollege to seniors, as well as counseling services for adult learners. You will find the UW-Madison Continuing Studies home page at http://www.dcs.wisc.edu, or browse the Web site using the navigational links below.
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File last updated: July 18, 2008
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