Poetry is known for its economy of language, but even over the course of a very short poem, something changes—the reader arrives at a place that is far from where they began.
This generative workshop will ask participants to consider how poems turn in sometimes striking and unexpected ways. For new and experienced poets alike, this class will offer a new lens for looking at poems and new techniques to push us beyond our comfort zones.
In a supportive environment, we’ll read and discuss poems, paying close attention to their structures and the ways in which they shift. Through writing exercises and prompts, we will then use these master examples as models to write our own first drafts of future poems.
Jacques J. Rancourt is the author of two poetry collections, Brocken Spectre (Alice James Books, 2021) and Novena (winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd prize, Pleiades Press, 2017), as well as a chapbook, In the Time of PrEP (Chad Walsh Series, Beloit Poetry Journal, 2018).
A recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University and a Halls Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, Jacques's poems have appeared in AGNI, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. Raised in Maine, he lives and teaches in San Francisco.
Click here to learn more about Jacques.