Craft Talks
“ I just wanted to thank you again for yesterday's webinar. I found it so helpful and informative. I sign up for so many of these offerings on Zoom, but often walk away feeling like I didn't learn anything, let alone sparked with enthusiasm. That was not the case with yours yesterday. Your questions to the panelists were specific and spot-on, and their responses were beyond helpful. I walked away with notes and excitement. Thank you so much for the time it took you to coordinate all of that and to deliver such a wonderful hour or so. ”
- Beth Boylan from Asbury Park, NJ
(@bethiebookworm)
Asking Along Part 1: Openings • Poetry of Jane Hirshfield
Explore the poetry of Jane Hirshfield, led by Ellen Goldsmith, professor emeritus of CUNY, along with others to guide the discussion. Part 1 explores poems that provide openings.
Asking Along Part 2: Transformation • Poetry of Jane Hirshfield,
Explore the poetry of Jane Hirshfield, led by Ellen Goldsmith, professor emeritus of CUNY, along with others to guide the discussion. The second session focuses on poems that provide transformation.
Everything Matters: Exploring the Creative Imagination with Rainer Maria Rilke with Dr. Mark S. Burrows, PhD
Explore the imaginative world that lives in Rilke’s poems with one of the leading interpreters and award-winning translators of his writings. We will consider what Rilke meant when he insisted that “poems are not feelings, but experiences,” and what it means to encounter—and write—poems with that in mind. Rilke also insisted that everything, to the minutest of things, was alive as part of what he called “the Whole,” and thus that everything mattered. His poems encourage us to widen the lens of our perception to the point that we begin to see that—and how—“everything matters” in our lives and in the world we inhabit together.
Ekphrastic Poetry with Melissa McKinstry
Melissa McKinstry
Ekphrasis: Poets Engaging with Other Arts
“Move back, Miss, behind the line, you’re too close to the painting.”
–– Ama Codjoe
Ekphrasis was originally an exercise in vivid description. In this Craft Talk with Millay House Writer-in-Residence, Melissa McKinstry, you’ll hear from a rich array of contemporary poets who cross “the line” to see what––and how––they discover beyond description. Exploring the special exhibit at Page Gallery “Art & Ekphrastic Poetry” will provide rich source material for your own ekphrastic poems. Mark Doty wrote, “We think that to find ourselves we need turn inward…But ‘I’ is just as much to be found in the world…Say what you see and you experience yourself through your style of seeing and saying.” We’ll discuss a variety of specific approaches to converse with art and write into something you don’t already know.
If you register for this Craft Talk, and decide to submit a poem to the Open Call from Page Gallery and The Poets Corner, then we will waive your submission fee. Just email thepoetscornermaine@gmail.com for your special submission link.
Melissa McKinstry holds an MFA from Pacific University, and her poetry appears in such
journals as The Adroit Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Rattle, Alaska Quarterly Review,
december, Tahoma Literary Review, and Best New Poets 2023. For more information on the poet,
please visit https://www.melissamckinstry.com.
An Afternoon Craft Talk with Poet & Essayist Ross Gay (IN PERSON)
IN PERSON EVENT IN CAMDEN, MAINE. Poet and essayist Ross Gay, author of Inciting Joy, The Book of Delights, Bring the Shovel Down, and The Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, comes to Camden!
An Afternoon Craft Talk with Poet & Essayist Ross Gay (VIRTUAL)
VIRTUAL EVENT VIA ZOOM. Poet and essayist Ross Gay, author of Inciting Joy, The Book of Delights, Bring the Shovel Down, and The Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, comes to Camden!
VIRTUAL: “You You You: the address of poetry” – A Craft Talk with Pádraig Ó Tuama
VIRTUAL EVENT VIA ZOOM. A poem is a word-event going in many directions at once. Sometimes the “you” of a poem is a specific person, at other times it’s the poet, or a general audience, and at times there’s no you at all so the poem addresses itself to the world. Join Pádraig Ó Tuama virtually for this craft talk, a part of the 2024 Camden Festival of Poetry.
IN PERSON: “You You You: the address of poetry” – A Craft Talk with Pádraig Ó Tuama
IN PERSON EVENT IN CAMDEN, MAINE. A poem is a word-event going in many directions at once. Sometimes the “you” of a poem is a specific person, at other times it’s the poet, or a general audience, and at times there’s no you at all so the poem addresses itself to the world. Join Pádraig Ó Tuama for this craft talk, a part of the 2024 Camden Festival of Poetry.
Heartwork: Exploring Rilke's Poetry with Mark S. Burrows
Heartwork explores Rilke’s insistence that we are to “live the questions” in our lives before we can hope to discover any “answers.” How do we do this? He felt that this involved “finding images for [our] transformations,” and lived his vocation as a poet in pursuit of that longing. His poems continue to open us to the wholeness that is always alive within us, even amid what we experience as fragments of brokenness.
Submitting Your Work for Publication: A Two-Part Craft Talk and Workshop
Submitting Your Work for Publication: A Two-Part Craft Talk and Workshop with Chelsea Jackson
Do you have stories or poems you'd like to share with the world? Are you new to the submission process and don't know where to start or how to find publication opportunities? In this two-part course, we will demystify the process of publication and equip writers with essential knowledge and tools for submitting.
Publishing Poetry Today
We’ll hear from editors at Poets & Writers Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Maine Review, and the publisher of the independent press Kelsay Books, joining Meg in a lively discussion of the art and science of getting our poems out into the world. (Full disclosure: Kelsay Books published Meg’s new collection, Magma Intrusions in May 2023).
Hybrid Forms Laboratory
Hybrid Forms Laboratory with Freesia McKee
In this experimental, non-traditional workshop, participants will bring one or two in-progress pieces of writing based on the hybrid prompts provided and, as a group, exchange encouragement and descriptive feedback while facing the fears we may have related to sharing hybrid forms with an audience.
More than Just Multiple: Hybrid Forms Webinar
More than Just Multiple: Hybrid Forms Webinar with Julie Marie Wade
This craft talk will highlight various approaches to writing hybrid forms, including contemporary examples and prompts to buoy your personal creative practice.