I’m compiling a document called “Ignoratio Elenchi” (“missing the point”) with fragments of interesting things that framed failed poems. My hope is that this daisy-chain of failed, poetic dramatic situations will come together as something new, maybe a lyric essay on and demonstrating failure. This project must be something like a grappa, that liquor made […]
Category: On Writing
Christopher Castellani on Writing About Our Own Lives
—from The Art of Perspective (Graywolf, 2016)
A Short Note About Writing After Dreaming
On days after nights I dream wildly, my imagination’s much more agile, limber. These are the best days for me to write, and I begin by recording the dream in my writing notebook. This transcription—or, rather, translation—of the dream returns me to a fertile space, where probabilities lack context and possibilities abound.
Proposal for a New Form: the “Boulder”
Proposal for a new form, because I’m writing in it . . . A “Boulder” is wedged somewhere between a prose poem and a micro-essay, as if between a rock and a hard place, but gestures toward fiction through its willingness to engage in absurd scenarios instigated by the true occasions or circumstances introduced in […]
“On Poetry’s Relevancy” and a Reading Poetry Exercise
Class: Writing Poetry (Virginia Commonwealth University) Genre: Poetry Purpose: To encourage students to be generous, curious, and discerning readers of poetry and to consider poetry’s impact on culture. Readings: Poetry‘s July/August 2014 issue that includes poems by Dean Young, Philip Fried, D.A. Powell, Traci Brimhall, Devin Johnston, Rosanna Warren, Amanda Calderon, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Rickey […]
On Writing Poems, Workshop, and Reading Like a Writer
ON WRITING POEMS, WORKSHOP, AND READING LIKE A WRITER Class: Writing Poetry (Virginia Commonwealth University) Genre: Poetry Purpose: To introduce my students to the expectations of the course while providing them with some insight into the process of reading, writing, and workshopping poems. On Writing Poems In this course, I will not assign topics or […]
Poetry Analysis Exercise
Class: Intro to Creative Writing Genre: Poetry Readings: A poetry packet featuring the poems listed below Time: 30 minutes Group 1: “Wherever My Dead Go When I’m Not Remembering Them” (Shapiro) and “In the Waiting Room” (Bishop) Group 2: “Perpetually Attempting to Soar” (Ruefle) and “The Lovers of the Poor” (Brooks) Group 3: “Your Wild […]
“Fame Makes a Man Take Things Over” Exercise
Class: Writing Out of the Ordinary Genre: Creative nonfiction Readings: A packet of persona poems and dramatic monologues Time: 10 minutes 1. Pick a celebrity, sports star, cartoon or comic book character, product mascot (ex. Count Chocula, the Geico gecko, etc.) or newsworthy individual (Octomom, Charles Manson, etc.). 2. Create a mundane problem for that […]
