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 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

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

Teacher: Elaine Fletcher Chapman (Walters McFerron)

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

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.

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 the snow, quietly, quietly.

leaving nothing out.