What do we mean by the “poetic turn”? I think of it as a change of gears, a ship tacking on the water, any shift in the poem, rhetorical or formal, from description to reflection, from question to answer, from one Point of View to another, from statement to contradiction—it’s a swing of the camera’s lens, a new voice or tone, a new language, a break in rhyme or meter. There are countless ways that a poem can turn, and the turn of a poem can be quiet and subtle or dramatic and unsettling.
Kim Addonizio says: “A turn is … a measure of energy… The leap from one synapse to another…one level of understanding…to being in the presence of the mystery.” In his essay “Bivalves,” Carl Phillips considers … “the hinge…as a way to get the reader from one place to another…part of the poem’s musculature, … [giving] an athleticism to the poem, even as it also promotes momentum.” In an interview, Hayan Charara says, “The “poetic turn” is another way to talk about misdirection. Some part of the poem…builds expectation, then it turns against that expectation.” Gregory Pardlo says, “If a poem doesn’t have a turn, I want my money back.”
Looking at a variety of poems, we’ll discuss the kinds of turns we make and the ones we have yet to risk. We will consider how the turn displays the poet’s particular imagination, that impulse towards mystery—boundless, infinite. We will consider how participants can apply the ideas from the workshop to their own poems.
This Zoom workshop is open to writers at all levels and is limited to ten students. Please review the course policies page before registering for any class. The course fee is $150.00.
Please email Patrick Donnelly at pdonnelly@frostplace.org with any questions.
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About the Instructor
Blas Falconer is the author of four poetry collections, including Rara Avis (Four Way Books, 2024) and Forgive the Body This Failure (Four Way Books, 2018). He is also the co-editor of two anthologies: The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity (The University of Arizona Press, 2011), with Lorraine M. López, and Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), with Beth Martinelli and Helena Mesa. Falconer is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. He teaches in the San Diego State University MFA program and is the editor-in-chief at Poetry International Online. Read more: https://blasfalconer.com/
Registrants, please note: In the payment field, you can choose to edit the suggested contribution to Zeffy by selecting ‘other’ and typing in another amount.