Creative Writing Workshop- Tomas Transtromer:The Open Frontier,Landscape and Life

Creative Writing Workshop I & II

Tomas Transtromer: The Open Frontier, Landscape and Life

 

“Like so many poets before him, Transtromer is forever reminding us that the world is not what it appears to be; that with mindfulness and close attention, you might get a glimpse of something vast and strange.”

 

While reading Transtromer, winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Literature, we begin to think about translation, dreams and music. Unsure of the direction his writing will take us, we open to listening for our own still voices speaking directly to us as we spend the winter writing and revising  poems and prose.

 

Texts: The Great Enigma, New Collected Poems by Tomas Transtromer Translated by Robin Fulton

The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Transtromer, chosen and translated by Robert Bly

 

Suggested reading:

Tomas Transtromer Selected Poems 1954-1986 edited by Robert Hass

Windows and Stones: Selected Poems by Tomas Transtromer translated by May Swenson

http://tomastranstromer.net

 

Teacher: Elaine Fletcher Chapman (Walters McFerron), MFA

 

Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm for eight meetings

Creative Writing Workshop I begins Jan. 31, 2012

Creative Writing Workshop II begins Jan. 24, 2012

 

Cost: $300

 

Place: 2940 N. Lynnhaven Road, Virginia Beach, VA

 

For further information: Elaine Fletcher Chapman 757-650-8735

ewmcferron@gmail.com

 

 

The Writer’s Studio

Ars Poetica Reading at The Cokesbury Church in Onancock

Last evening people gathered to read and listen to poems about the art of poetry. Ruth read Bly and Dickinson. Barrie read Hirshfield, Betty read MacLeish. Dave read Frost. Alice read Kenyon. Lee Ann read Collins. Fosten recited The Tempest. Robert and Will read their own poems. I began with Gregg and ended with Rukeyser.  All the while we were surrounded by the sacredness of stained glass windows, wood and people who just came to listen, unexpectedly to poetry on a quiet Saturday night on The Eastern Shore of Virginia.

The Writer’s Studio Reading Series: Ars Poetica, Poems about the Art of Poetry

In conjunction with the Crossing Over Writing Retreat, THE WRITER’S STUDIO presents:

 

The Writer’s Studio Reading Series: Ars Poetica, Poems about The Art of Poetry

 

On Saturday, October 8 at 7:00 pm, at The Historic Cokesbury Church on the corner of Market and West Streets in Onancock, Virginia, THE WRITER’S STUDIO will host a reading of poems.  

 

This event is free and open to the public. You do not have to be a poet to attend. You only have to love or be curious about poetry.

 

Wallace Stevens asserted that “Poetry is the subject of the Poem.” We will gather to hear poems about poetry and reflect on the art of poetry.

 

“The poem of the mind in the act of finding / what will suffice…” Wallace Stevens

“Tell the truth but tell it slant…” Emily Dickinson

“The room of marvels.”   Andre Breton

 

Please bring a poem about poetry to read aloud or simply come to experience an evening of poetry.

 

Sign-up will begin at 6:45pm.

 

For further information about the reading or THE WRITER’S STUDIO please call or email Elaine Fletcher Chapman: thewritersstudio.elaine@gmail.com or 757-650-8735 or www.thewritersstudio.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

Creative Writing Workshop: Toward a Harnessing Of Light

Creative Writing Workshop: Toward a Harnessing of Light

 

This mixed genre workshop of poetry and nonfiction is designed to inspire and illuminate. We will concentrate on generating new work. Some time will be spent on revision, as well. Come prepared to enter Jane Hirshfield’s poems which move like “light beams.” We will reflect on her prose for style and revelation for what is to be found there.

 

Texts: Come, Thief and Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry both by Jane Hirshfield

 

Teacher: Elaine Fletcher Chapman (Walters McFerron), MFA

 

Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm for Six meetings

Beginning  Tuesday, September 13 and meeting every other Tuesday except for Thanksgiving week.

 

Cost: $250

 

Place: 2940 N. Lynnhaven Road, Virginia Beach, VA

 

For further information: Elaine Fletcher Chapman

757-650-8735

 

 

Courses, Fall 2011

Creative Writing Workshop: Toward a Harnessing of  Light

Teacher: Elaine Fletcher Chapman (Walters McFerron)

Texts: Come, Thief and Nine Gates: Entering the Mind Of Poetry by Jane Hirshfield

 

Wendell Berry: The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, am and free.

Wendell Berry The Book Of Camp Branch

…Every walk, as Archie Ammons

said, “is a new walk.” And so

go slow. Let the mind

step with the feet

as the stream steps

downward over rocks,

nowhere anywhere

but where it is.

Like Snow by Wendell Berry

Suppose we did our work

like the snow, quietly, quietly.

leaving nothing out.

The Writer’s Studio Reading Series: The Favorite Poem.

On Saturday night, April 2, at 7:00pm a Poetry Reading was held in the Historic Cokesbury Church in Onancock, Virginia. The first in a series of readings was well attended. It was a perfect setting as the sun set and the light faded. Among the local readers were, Anne Nock, Betty Martin, Scott Whitaker, Fosten Chandler and Bob Chapman. The Writer’s Studio Writers also read. Scott Whitaker declared before reading a poem by Larry Levis: “Poetry has arrived on the Eastern Shore.”

 

Two more readings are planned: May 14 at The Historic Cokesbury Church at 7:00pm,The Writer’s Studio Reading Series: Poetry and Prose featuring Ruth Bizot, Betty Davis, Diana Sullivan and Tracy Rice Weber and in conjuntion with GardenArt on Kings Street and The Writer’s Studio, June 12 at GardenArt at 3:30pm, A Garden Party Poetry Reading of Poems about Gardens and Gardening. Both Readings will be open to the public.