Workshopping Poetry

Editor's note: Although my own name appears on the right side of all article pages, this feature was written by Mary Hope, who frequents Poetry here at suite101.com. Ms. Hope's writing can also be found under our "Member Showcase" link.

In 1977 I was 17, and finishing my junior year of high school when I attended my first poetry workshop. The workshop lasted three days over spring break. Our leader was Kim Stafford who had been participating in the Artists in the Schools program in rural Northeast Oregon. For three days we wrote and talked. With Kim's gentle instruction, we set and printed our own chapbooks with a portable printing press. As a young person with only one clear ambition in life, writing, this was utopia.

I kept writing but didn't find my way back into a classroom past high school, or venture into any writing groups until 20 years later. This past winter while reading a small book by Mary Oliver, "A Poetry Handbook," she spoke of the value of workshops and I considered finding one again.

I'm into my 3rd workshop now, nestled in New England with echoes of Frost, Thoreau and Dickinson, and an even surer ambition that I must write. I spent three hours one Sunday in February with ten strangers ranging in age from 18 to 75, male and female, black and white. The assembled writers included a playwright, a chemist, and a high school student. One woman had never written a poem; one was returning to poetry after a 30 year absence. This revisit of the workshop experience made me sure I had to do it again!

As luck would have it, my local library helped by hosting a workshop titled "Painting with Words". The signup limit was 15, with 10 people on the waiting list. Apparently others had been waiting also.

The 15 people who make it in to the workshop run the gamut of non-writers to people who work on poetry everyday. I'm in the latter group, and as we opened our notebooks, there was much anticipation in the room.

This class is led by a woman who teaches English at a community college locally, and she has decided that we will approach the poems from a language only perspective, leaving the form to the poet. At our first session we form personalities and feelings for words we have chosen, what would your word say if it could speak, what country is it from, what food does it taste like. We leave that night with 'homework.' Use three strong images and show us the word. We also must bring a fruit or vegetable and a kitchen tool.

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