In this all-levels workshop, we will explore and write poems that make visible and uplift all the aspects of our lives, the joyful and the difficult, the things we shout and the things we hide. We’ll take as our textbook the anthology “Poetry is not a Luxury: Poems for All Seasons.” Each day will involve lively group discussion of poems from the anthology, guided writing prompts to generate our own work, and plenty of time to explore and draw inspiration from the nature that abounds at The Clearing. Students will also have the opportunity to receive feedback on their own writing from the group. Suitable for seasoned writers and those brand new to poetry, and everyone in between! Students will need to purchase a copy of Poetry’s Not a Luxury: Poems for All Seasons. Marty will contact students prior to class.

Marty McConnell lives in Chicago. She is the author of When They Say You Can’t Go Home Again, What They Mean Is You Were Never There, which won the Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana University Press. Her first nonfiction book, Gathering Voices: Creating a Community-Based Poetry Workshop, was published by YesYes Books. Her first full-length collection, Wine for a Shotgun, received the Silver Medal in the Independent Publishers Awards and was a finalist for both the Audre Lorde Award and the Lambda Literary Awards. She is the co-creator and editor of Underbelly, an online magazine dedicated to the art and magic of poetry revision. She is an MFA graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and is widely published in journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry, Mid-American Review, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review and Crab Orchard, among others. A former artist-in-residence at Hedgebrook in Seattle, Washington, Marty performs and leads workshops at schools, conferences and festivals around the country. 

Level: All Levels