Beat era writers have had a profound influence on modern culture and mores as well as contemporary poetics -- in particular performance poetry. Write the Beats is a workshop of Beat poetry prompts: Each of the six weeks will use a prompt based on a poem by a prominent beat era poet: Ginsberg, Snyder, Ferlinghetti, Diprima, Kaufman and Kerouac. Each prompt will explore themes of political poetry/identity, environmentalism, feminist poetry, surrealism, and spontaneous bop prosody. We will also look at works by Baraka, Waldman, and Corso for the poetry of rebellion, beat spirituality and neo romanticism.
Instructor: Ray McNiece is the author of nine books of poems and monologues, most recently Love Song for Cleveland, a collaboration with photographer Tim Lachina and Breath Burns Away, New Haiku. The Orlando Sentinel reporting on Ray’s solo theater piece “Us — Talking Across America” at theFringe Festival called him “a modern day descendant of Woody Guthrie. He has a way with words and a wry sense of humor.” He toured Russia with Yevgeny Yevtushenko, appeared on Good Morning, Russia and performed at the Moscow Polytech, the Russian Poets’ Hall of Fame where he was dubbed ‘the American Mayakovski.’ He has toured Italy twice with legendary beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He fronts the blues rock band, Tongue-in-Groove.
Details: Write the Beats: A Workshop of Beat Poetry Prompts takes place Thursdays April 22 & 29 and May 6, 13, 20 & 27 from 6:00-8:00pm remotely through Zoom.
