dr_pretentious | That Poetry Workshop

In keeping with the Kafkaesque traditions of administrative method at Rutgers University, the course I am theoretically supposed to begin teaching on Thursday, 23 June--which is to say, in less than three weeks--has not yet been issued a course number. Without a course number, the people who want to take the course have not been able to figure out how to register for it. The course description and bio blurb are not yet on the website for the creative writing track at the School of Continuing Education, though someone with reason to know assures me that the situation will change any minute now. Will it change soon enough for the people who want to take the course to register, so that the class actually runs? Nobody knows. I've plastered Middlesex County with fliers at my own expense, just in case registration ever becomes possible. That's life with Rutgers.

Really, though, if the workshop ever occurs, it'll be great fun.

Here's what the School of Continuing Education and I hope I'll be up to on Thursday evenings, 6-9pm, for eight weeks starting on June 23, in the Poetry Center at Murray Hall on the College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick, NJ.

Poetry Workshop
Description:
Poetic form is a form of play, a sensory pleasure that engages the ear and the eye. This workshop invites writers at all levels of skill and experience to try on a variety of forms and techniques. We will consider Robert Pinsky's contention that the true medium of poetry is not the printed page, but rather the breath of the person speaking the poem's words. Assignments will explore the patterns of repetition and variation--of sound, of rhythm, of image, and of typography, among others--that can structure poetic language. We will read poems that make especially vivid, instructive use of the forms we will attempt, but workshop discussion will be our main enterprise during class meetings. Our final session will include information about publication.

Instructor:
Sarah Avery grew up on army bases in Japan, Kentucky, Korea, Germany, and Washington, D.C. At Rutgers, she earned her doctorate in English and taught courses in creative writing, mythology, poetry, and composition. For the past two years, she has run the Cleo's Cafe Poetry Series in Highland Park. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Calyx, Feminist Studies, and Free Lunch.

If you want more information, or to register for the class, and are overwhelmed by optimism, check out the website, which at least has useful general information about the program. The phone number, 732-932-8919, might be a better bet for registration.