My life is ruled by lists — not the top-ten type — but the scrawled kind I find stashed post-season in winter coats or crumpled at the bottom of my bottomless bag. Lists like: “vodka, milk, apples, cookies, bananas, eggs, soap.” There is poetry in this. Not because I am a poet but because, like you, I am busy and, in the ensemble, these lists reveal the habits of a life — a life of drinking vodka and eating bananas, of washing one’s hands. They also chart an ever-changing cycle of concerns—which is the province of poetry. In this generative workshop, we will think about form, intention, the cumulative tension and power of lists, and how they fit into our concept of what a poem is. We will discover how catalogue and compendium can unlock creativity, and can potentially map the course for a cycle of poems.
This Zoom workshop is open to writers at all levels, and 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.
About the Instructor
About the Instructor
Tina Cane is the founder/director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI, and, from 2016-2024, served as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island where she lives with her husband and three children. In her capacity as poet laureate, Cane established her state’s first youth poetry ambassador program in partnership with Rhode Island Center for the Book, and brought the Poetry-in-Motion program from the New York City Transit System to Rhode Island’s state-wide buses. Cane is the author of The Fifth Thought, Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, poems with art by Esther Solondz (Skillman Books, 2016), Once More With Feeling (Veliz Books 2017), Body of Work (Veliz Books, 2019), and Year of the Murder Hornet (Veliz Books, 2022). In 2016, Tina received the Fellowship Merit Award in Poetry, from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. She was also a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets. Her debut novel-in-verse for young adults, Alma Presses Play (Penguin/Random House) was released in September 2021. Cane is also the creator/ curator of the distance reading series, Poetry is Bread, and the editor of Poetry is Bread: The Anthology (forthcoming from Nirala Press, 2024). Her second verse novel for young readers, Are You Nobody Too? (Penguin/ Random House) was released in August 2024.
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