Workshop: Wanderlust: Distance and Intimacy in Poetry and Prose

Join us for a journey across geographical distances of land and sea, emotional ones between people, and the small and vast spaces on the page. We will explore how prose grows and shrinks distances to build worlds, to bring characters together and push them apart, and how it makes the reader experience familiarity and detachment in a visceral way. We’ll look at why some characters are irresistible and repelling. We’ll dive into the wreck with poetry and examine the boundaries in the line and the techniques that transcend boundaries. We’ll travel to unexpected places of intimacy and belonging of narrative poetry, and what makes a metaphor lustful.

The workshop will include readings, discussion, and writing exercises. You will experiment with ways to create distance and intimacy, discovering surprising places in your own work. You will apply techniques used by the likes of Jesmyn Ward, Sharon Olds, Natalie Diaz, James Baldwin and others. Let us wander through nearness, farness and everything in between.