Friday, April 17, 2015

Saturday, May 2: Workshop in Columbia, SC


The Poet as Seeker

With
Susan Laughter Meyers, instructor

 
Saturday, May 2, 2015
10 until 3

 
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door," says Emily Dickinson. What better way for a poet to become seeker than to make the self available to possibility? As poets, we have questions to ask, some without answers; leaps to make, risks to take; mysteries to ponder. We must pay attention and be patient--which is to say, we must be willing to listen to the poem as it is being written.
 

In this workshop we'll head out into the unknown, as we read exemplary poems from our class packet and generate new work of our own. (Feel free, too, to bring a poem draft that you're working on in an attempt to reach a deeper level in some way.) As seekers, we'll follow Bernard Malamud's advice to "Teach yourself to work in uncertainty." Who knows where our poems will end up? Come, let us open every door--and window!

  

A Writing Workshop
by the Broad River
in Columbia, SC

 

Susan Hendricks invites you for a day of poetry
and expressive writing among friends
in the natural setting of river, forest and wildlife
near downtown Columbia

  


Register:     
           Registration fee: $40
           By email to susanhendr@gmail.com
           By mail to 5 Possum Run, Columbia, SC 29223
           For Questions, phone 803-788-6826
 
Limited to 25 participants

Directions will be provided to registered participants

 

Susan Laughter Meyers, of Givhans, SC, is the author of My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass, winner of the Cider Press Review Editors Prize. Her collection Keep and Give Away (University of South Carolina Press, 2006) won the SC Poetry Book Prize, the SIBA Book Award for Poetry, and the Brockman-Campbell Book Award.  A long-time writing instructor, she has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte.  http://susanmeyers.blogspot.com

How I enjoyed teaching the PSSC/Emrys seminar

The poetry community in Greenville, SC, is a talented, energetic one that I was delighted to be in the midst of for its annual PSSC/Emrys seminar last month. Nancy Dew Taylor, a long-time leader in both organizations, started this event in Greenville five years ago—and what a contribution she has made to this region's literary calendar with it. Seminar instructors so far have included Becky Gould Gibson, Cathy Smith Bowers, Jillian Wiese, Phebe Davidson, and me. Each year about 15-20 people gather for the opportunity to focus on a poetry topic—typically pertaining to craft or poetics. The seminar can consist of lecture, discussion, and writing—all as a way to further explore the day's subject. Thank you, Nancy and attending poets, for your participation and help in illuminating our topic this year, "Complicating the Poem."

The Poetry Society of South Carolina (PSSC) is proud to work with Emrys Foundation as sponsors of this event. Much appreciation to Emrys's president Vera Gomez for her leadership and for participating in the seminar.

Last month's event:
Saturday, Mar. 28
Emrys/PSSC seminar: "Complicating the Poem"
Susan Laughter Meyers, instructor
10 a.m. - noon
Coldwell Banker Caine, 111 Williams, St.
Greenville, SC
Nancy Dew Taylor, coordinator