Start Date: 3/3/19

Art makes order out of chaos and chaos out of order. We need both to stay alive. We need what we don’t yet know as much as what we know. We each search for an optimal relationship between the two that lets us express ourselves in the world. You’re invited to experiment with creating a poem in different ways. The first is without a plan, beginning with now and the moment. The second is with a plan, either a structure or a topic. Of course both processes have chaos and order. If you are working without a plan the order begins to emerge. Your art is in finding it. If you are working with a plan, your art is to let in the surprises and unexpected turns. Writers can come into their personal poetics when they push what they are doing further or when they go the other direction and more fully experience that unexplored edge. If you don’t write sentences, know that and push it further. Or write in sentences and discover what the sentence is for you. If you are not visual, become a describer, or, relinquish all description. The experiments themselves will stretch your language body.

Week 1: mappings

Week 2: juxtapositions

Week 3: the ode: negative capability

Week 4: line work

Week 5: abecedarian

Week 6: amplifications