Please join the Gloucester Writers Center as we celebrate National Poetry Month. Click HERE to see our poetry events listed on our calendar along with registration information, or continue reading below.
LINEBREAKS
APRIL 6 10 AM TO NOON
ZOOM WORKSHOP
The ways we shape—and choose to break—our poetic lines is an art itself! In this workshop, we’ll explore techniques to see our own line breaks anew, through exercises and discussion of a handful of great poems. All participants will have the chance to have one poem workshopped by the group, with a focus on lineation.
$5 suggested donation to support GWC programs. All are welcome: familiarity with writing free verse a plus! Space is limited; reserve your spot by emailing: adam@gloucesterwriters.org
Led by Adam Tessier, GWC Program Director
SCAVENGED POEMS
Saturday, April 9, 9 am–noon
In-Person Workshop
One 3-hour session
In this interactive workshop, Gloucester’s historic Downtown serves as our muse. Armed with our notebooks and phones—and sharing a few instant cameras and audio recorders among us—we’ll prowl the streets of downtown and the waterfront, collecting inspiration and fragments of language in the city’s sights and sounds. After, we will gather to share our discoveries and begin shaping our own scavenged poems.
$10 suggested donation to support GWC programs. All are welcome: no previous experience required!
Space is limited; reserve your spot and for location information: adam@gloucesterwriters.org
Led by Adam Tessier, GWC Program Director
POETS IN PUBS
POETRY MEET-UP!
Tuesday, April 12, 6–9 pm
Raise a glass and toast the muses—and bring your poems, no excuses! Celebrate National Poetry Month with fellow poets at a venerable Gloucester watering hole. Come for table readings, micro-workshops, performances, and good, old-fashioned conversation. All poets 21+ and their friends welcome.
Let us know you’re coming! Email adam@gloucesterwriters.org for location information!
Award-winning poet, teacher, and editor Catherine Strisik (cathystrisik.com) is Taos, NM’s 2nd Poet Laureate (2020–21); a recipient of the 2020 Taoseña Award as Woman of Impact; and author of Insectum Gravitis (finalist New Mexico/AZ Book Award in Poetry, 2020), The Mistress (awarded New Mexico/AZ Book Award for Poetry, 2017), Thousand-Cricket Song, and the recently completed manuscript And They Saw Me Turn To Hear Them (semi-finalist, Philip Levine Prize in Poetry, 2021). A Pushcart Prize nominee, her works have Her numerous publications over 30 years awards and Pushcart nominations and with poetry translated into Greek, Persian, and Bulgarian.
A seven-time Pushcart Prize nominated poet, Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published in 2016 by Indolent Books and The Unbuttoned Eye, a full-length 2019 collection from 3: A Taos Press. Among other publications his poetry appears in the American Journal of Poetry, Crab Orchard, Lana Turner, The Maine Review, The Massachusetts Review, Shenandoah, and Sixth Finch. Robert serves as an active member of Nature-Culture, poets Writing the Land and as development editor for Indolent Books based in Brooklyn, NYC. He is the recipient of a 2022 artist residency at Monson Arts, sponsored by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and lives in Maine with his husband Stephen. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org
PROSE POEM IMMERSION
*Two 90 minute sessions*
Mondays, April 18 and 25, 7 pm on Zoom
What makes a prose poem…poetry? In this two-session Zoom class, we’ll explore this hybrid genre and develop skills to write our own prose poems. Together, we will read and discuss examples; try out exercises to open our imaginations to the form; and, in week two, workshop our experiments together.
$25 suggested donation supports GWC programs. All are welcome: no previous experience needed! Space is limited; reserve your spot by emailing: adam@gloucesterwriters.org
Led by Adam Tessier, GWC Program Director
LIVE WORKSHOP
HAIKU OUTDOORS
One 90-minute session
Saturday, April 23, 10 am
Join poet and educator Heidi Wakeman for an exploration of haiku outdoors in beautiful Gloucester.
$5 suggested donation supports GWC programs. All are welcome: no previous experience needed! Space is limited; reserve your spot by emailing: adam@gloucesterwriters.org
Led by Heidi Wakeman, educator, poet and GWC Board of Directors
DROP-IN POETRY WORKSHOP
ALMOST THERE
Wednesday, April 27, 6–8 pm
FREE
Do you have a poem that’s almost there…but could use another set of sharp, encouraging eyes to get it over the finish line? Stop by this drop-in workshop for helpful consultations by GWC-affiliated poets, and to connect with other local writers. Let’s close out National Poetry Month with some finished verse to show for it!
All are welcome, just come by! Location to be announced.
Led by Adam Tessier, GWC Program Director, and friends