POETRY PORTALS In this three part workshop, we’ll explore poetry as a tool for compressing meaning and magic into language. We’ll read works by poets across time and place, engage in collaborative and individual writing experiments, and envision how poetry skills can apply to our own personal projects and practices. Participants will write in response to prompts, with the option to share and receive feedback. All experience levels welcome! Come for the full series, or drop in for one session. Session 1: ESTABLISHING WORLDS: imagery and diction Poets establish a rich physical and emotional setting quickly, through carefully selected words and precisely crafted images. In a very short space, poets surprise, delight, challenge, and satisfy. We’ll look at the opening passages of iconic works and create language to introduce our own imagined worlds. Session 2: MUSIC & MATH: sound patterns The sounds of words and sentences can have as much impact as the meaning, and carry immense pleasure. Poets consciously and unconsciously rely on meter, rhythm, rhyme and other sound patterns to convey emotion. We’ll look at examples from poets across time, and co-create our own patterns, using chance and intention as entry points. Session 3: ARCHETYPES & OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVES In this session, we’ll look at poems that invoke archetypes and that craft images that uncannily convey internal human experience. How can poetic language link what’s outside of us to what’s inside? We’ll use divination decks as inspiration points for our own writing experiments. ABOUT Emily Brandt (she/they) is a poet, somatic coach, and facilitator with decades of experience writing, teaching, and supporting creative community. She’s the author of Falsehood, a co-founding editor of No, Dear, curator of the LINEAGE series at Wendy’s Subway, and member of Temp.Files, a video art cooperative and digital residency.
