Massachusetts Statewide Poetry Calendar

One of life’s great joys is finding time to listen -- whether to the scattered wonders of conversation or to the many voices of the non-human world: birdsong, wild wind, river’s sweep. In this bright fall workshop we will identify sources for the listener’s delight, and share ways to grow them into poems, songs and stories.

$25, needs-based scholarship available.

https://authorsandartistsfestival.wordpress.com/associated-programming/#ListeningToNature

Movement Language Nature Art explores the inherently aesthetic organization of human first perception—movement-sound. Organized in utero as one perception movement-sound constitutes primary language—the kinship language we humans share with the many intelligences of the Natural World. Through guided imagery mediation, movement-sound explorations, and art-making through perceptual sequencing, participants follow an experiential pathway discovering the inner processes of primary language. This gives experience for participants to independently direct their own Nature immersion primary languaging session. From this experience participants make art—poetry, prose, and/or visual—through the immediacy of primary languaging processes.

Rebecca R Burrill is an ecocentric dancer, artistic director, and movement-based child developmentalist-educator. Her work focuses on the aesthetics of first perceptions—movement-sound—as primary language, the language of human kinship with Nature. She engages people of all ages in the experience of these deep psycho-biological processes, culminating in community ceremonial site-specific dance performance. $25

instructor - Danny Balel
takeaway - a few poems you’re welcome to present at our poetry reading on the 31st
requirements - something to write on. a phone or computer with Zoom.
time - Sunday Jan. 24th @ 5:00 - 6:30 EST

We’re hosting a free drop-in to help our community find their smiles and write something new. The theme for our upcoming poetry reading is “reflection | regeneration | renewal.” To get ready, we’re hosting a free drop-in to help our community find their smiles and maybe write something new to come and read. We hope to see you there!

Traditional or “received” forms give poets the opportunity to practice technique, to work within an established scaffolding. We tune our ears to meter and rhythmic patterns that, once set up, are expected. So many forms to explore! We’ll start simply, define and try, limericks, acrostics, abcderians, haikus, tankas and move on to read sonnets, sestinas and villanelles. Perhaps once we know the pattern, we can learn to break the form like Robert Frost did in “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”.

Speak a poem with your body! Come join Slate Roof poets Audrey Gidman and Anna M. Warrock in the physical experience of language. What parts of the poem warrant motion? Does one image evoke the wrists, another the hips? Sign language? Shadowplay? Stillness? In this perfection-free zone, we’ll speak bodypoems, using short writing prompts to launch us into movement, invitation, physical questioning, and possible arrival. For poets and non-poets, adults and high-schoolers. $15

https://authorsandartistsfestival.wordpress.com/associated-programming/#SlateRoof

Do you remember clapping out the syllables of your name in first grade? Pure syllabic poetry is common in languages like Japanese but rarer in English, which counts both syllables and stresses. Starting with haikus, we will try our hands at writing tankas, nonets, roundels, cinquains, and diamantes. And as we go along, we’ll applaud each other’s syllabic creations and explore how poets like Yeats, Thomas and Plath used the syllabic form.

Susan Roney-O’Brien earned her MFA at Warren Wilson College and is the author of five poetry collections. She hosts monthly poetry readings, teaches workshops and coordinates the Stanley Kunitz summer writing series.

Join the City of Worcester’s Poets Laureate Juan Matos and Amina Mohammed for a Poetry Writing Workshop! Experienced poets and novices, teens and adults alike are invited to join this virtual workshop and hear the experiences of the Poets Laureate, who will share some of their works and guide attendees through creating their own poetry. In celebration of National Poetry Month, this Poetry Writing Workshop is hosted in partnership between the Worcester Public Library and the City of Worcester’s Cultural Development Division. For ages 16+.

Juan Matos earned a Master's Degree in bilingual education at Worcester State University and went on to teach Spanish Literature and ESL for 32 years, the last 22 of which in Worcester Public Schools. During this time he wrote and published 12 poetry books and anthologies, took part in local and international literary festivals and founded several literary groups and workshops.

Youth Poet Laureate Amina Mohammed grew up in Worcester's Main South neighborhood, the daughter of an immigrant family. Her parents worked long hours to provide for her and her siblings with considerable support from neighbors. Mohammad is the first Youth Poet Laureate in the state of Massachusetts.

Presented by the Worcester Public Library. 

This virtual poetry workshop is a vehicle for critique, a time of close reading and thoughtful responses that help craft the written word so that it says exactly what the author intends. The focus is the work itself. Poets are respectful of each other, value the craft, understand the courage it takes to have work critiqued, and make the final decisions about their own writing. Please join us. Writing prompts will be shared with registrants one week before the workshop, and we request you submit your work at least three days before the workshop to give attendees time to read your poem.

Susan Roney-O’Brien earned her MFA at Warren Wilson College and is the author of five poetry collections. She hosts monthly poetry readings, teaches workshops and coordinates the Stanley Kunitz summer writing series.