Revising Your Poems Like Gardeners (& Not Police)

Perhaps you've been told: "Writing is revising." Well, it's true. Writing is revising—but what does "revising" mean exactly? Altering line breaks? Adding stanzas? Cutting stanzas? Throwing the whole poem in the Recycle Bin? Revising can be intimidating, but in this workshop, we will take a different approach from that exacting editor that lives in most of our brains. We will approach our poems as gardeners and not police, drawing from Rachel Zucker's method of "radical revision" and examining our own poems through lenses of re-visioning to explore new incarnations our poems might exist in.

Note: This craft talk is aimed toward intermediate and advanced writers that already have a number of poems to choose from, old or new, that they would like to radically revise.

Instructor: Natasha Oladokun is a Black, queer poet and essayist from Virginia. She earned a BA in English from the University of Virginia, and an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University. She holds fellowships from Cave Canem, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Jackson Center for Creative Writing, Twelve Literary Arts, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the inaugural First Wave Poetry fellow. Her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, Image, Harvard ReviewOnline, Kenyon Review Online, Harper’s Bazaar, Catapult,and elsewhere. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and is working on her first collection of poems.

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Details: Revising Your Poems Like Gardeners (& Not Police) takes place Tuesday March 5 from 6:30-8:30pm remotely online via Zoom

Prerequisite: None

Genre: Poetry

Level: Intermediate to advanced level

Format: Craft talk and interactive workshop with time to work on revisions during the class

Location: This class takes place remotely online via Zoom

Size: Limited to 35 participants.

Scholarships: Two scholarship spots are available for this class for writers in Northeast Ohio. Apply by December 11.

Cancellations & Refunds: Cancel at least 48 hours in advance of the first class meeting to receive a full refund. Email info@litcleveland.org.

Registration Fee

$45 - Non-Member Registration

$30 - Registration with Member Discount

I'd also like to help out other writers with a donation to the Word for Word Scholarship Fund. (This fund provides low- and limited-income writers in NE Ohio with access to our classes)

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