Creative writing. Express yourself with the written word.

Description: What a Poem Is; What a Poem is For; and How You Make One

A poem is a sculpture of voice. It’s what a poet’s heart says to her mind, and her voice finds a body for. Each good poem is shapely god; keeping its own secrets, it tells us our own.

Poetry, in a sense, is what happens—to the writer and the reader—when we insist on more from language than we do in daily life and prose.

A poem, says Marie Howe, is a small pot that carries mystery in the world. How well it works its magic depends on how sound you make the vessel.

A good poem pays close and generous attention to the things of the world, to the feelings in our hearts, to the struggles of existence, and to the life of the mind; poems pay the same kind of fierce but loving attention to language itself and use it with care to do justice to the facts and mysteries of our places and our lives. Poetry is not just a genre, then; it is a practice of mindful living. The better the poem you write or read, the better you belong in your life and your world and days.

A thing—an idea, an experience, a love, a loss, a place on earth—said and known poetically is known more deeply and adequately than it can be known in any other form of expression. Poetry is an ancient and persistent way of getting things said; more than that, it is a way of seeing the world and being in it. This workshop explores what poets know about the craft involved in all that.

Form and voice are a big deal in a poem. By forcing hard linguistic choices on a poet, line after line, poetic form frees language (forces it, perhaps) to do the other work we need