Expressive Poetics
In a poem, we don’t need to have the answers or know all the pieces of a story. In fact, a poem can help us say things we didn’t have words for, can help us uncover things we didn’t know or acknowledge within ourselves. For this Gather, we’ll explore the world within. Through a guided writing time, we’ll explore seven different movements of the mind—different mental approaches to the same item or event. This gets us out of our usual patterns of thinking and remembering, and also gets us out of the anxiety of “what am I going to write?” We’ll then craft a poem from the phrases we’ve unearthed. We’ll learn how to approach writing in a less direct and less pressured manner, and how to find the poetry that’s already there—in our own voices, in our own minds.
Available Dates:
5 spots total. Added details to follow 2-3 days before the gathering date.
Linda Harris Dolan
Linda Harris Dolan is a poet, editor, and educator. As a teaching artist, she leads one-on-one writing sessions with pediatric patients at NYU Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital. She holds an MFA in Poetry and an MA in English and American Literature from NYU. Her own poetry circles questions of genetic illness, life in the disabled body, and the ways in which we are made and remade through sickness, loss, and caregiving. She’s particularly interested in the poetry that arises from our individual and communal vernaculars, and she helps students find the poetry that’s within their own everyday cadences and voices.