Gathering-of-Poets

SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 8 AM-5:15 PM

WITH A SPECIAL OPEN MIC EVENING, 7-9 PM

Held at The Community Arts Café, Fourth & Spruce, Winston-Salem, NC

One element that is crucial in any of the arts is the element of tension. This workshop will discuss ways we can create or enhance the tension in feeling, story, language, and line of our own poems. After registration, send one poem (optional) for workshop consideration to kevin@press53.com. Please note for which workshop the poem is intended. We cannot promise that every poem will be used. Limited to 20.

From prose, from talking, from communicating at work and home? Let's talk about poetry as another language, a language within our language, a language with a different kind of dictionary. We'll figure on the figurative, mess around with metaphor, line up the line breaks, make for the music, and fly. Send one poem by March 24 to kevin@press53.com (Please note for which workshop the poem is intended),which may or may not be used in workshop. Limited to 20.

This workshop is designed for poets experimenting with writing fiction, or who weave in and out of poetry and fiction regularly. Essentially, students will experiment with techniques of transforming their own poems into short stories. The class will examine how the traditionally compressed craft of poetry can be expanded to find the imbedded story suited to short or even longer fiction. Poems, because of their relatively short length, often rely on an image-charged summary, rather than a more detailed discursive narrative. Starting at the “occasion” of the poem, and the dramatic situation that engendered it, we’ll look at “seams” in various poems, and how those seams can be expanded, often ripped open, through extended narrative (plot, point of view, characterization, dialogue) to reveal the story in the fictive sense that has yet to be told without losing the musical language, compression, imagery, and rhythm of poetry. Limited to 20.

In the age of reality television, Twitter, and YouTube, do we have anything left to confess? This workshop will focus on the art and craft of contemporary confession, and examine how the genre has evolved since the ground-breaking work of Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and their protégés. Participants are requested to submit one poem prior to workshop to kevin@press53.com (Please note for which workshop the poem is intended). As many participant poems as possible will be discussed during the session. Limited to 20.

First Afternoon Workshop Block: 1:30 - 2:45 p.m. (Please Select One Workshop)

REGISTRATION

STEP 1:

Choose two morning and two afternoon workshops. Check box to select your desired workshops. If workshop is full, check the "waitlist" box. Waitlists will be cleared if space becomes available. After selections, click "Submit" button at bottom of page.

(Please plan to attend each workshop only once: no double sign-ups, please)

Fred Chappell

Former NC

Poet Laureate

First Morning Workshop Block: 9 - 10:15 a.m. (Please Select One Workshop)

Poems are written in lines, not paragraphs. Those lines feature images which contain music, set the rhythm, and carry the meaning forward. We will examine the work of master poets to see how they use lines. Lines long and short, contained and enjambed, syncopated, orchestrated, and compressed. Then working in small groups, we will play with the lines in our own poems, revising, trying different approaches. We’ll share these with the class and look at the revision strategies we used. Bring 2 or 3 unfinished poems. If you don’t wish to use your own work, poems by other writers will be provided. Limited to 20.

Second Morning Workshop Block: 10:30 - 11:45 a.m. (Please Select One Workshop)

Master Workshop with former North Carolina Poet Laureate Fred Chappell. Limited to 20.

Second Afternoon Workshop Block: 3:00 - 4:15 p.m. (Please Select One Workshop)

Master Workshop with former North Carolina Poet Laureate Fred Chappell. Limited to 20.

NOTE: Before clicking the submit button, please make sure you have selected the following:

One option from the First Morning Workshop block

One option from the Second Morning Workshop block

One option from the First Afternoon Workshop block

One option from the Second Afternoon Workshop block

If you are satisfied with your selections, please click the submit button now.

If you desire to make changes later, you may email or call Kevin Watson and we will do all we can to accommodate you. Changes can be made so long as space in your desired workshop is still available.

Click the "Submit" button to reserve your workshops.

Click photos for bios

Please fill out the boxes below, click the submit button, and then choose your method of payment:

STEP 2

Confirm Your Reservation Now: Pay for your reservation with credit/debit card now.

Payment: $125

Includes four workshops, contenintal breakfast, buffet lunch, faculty reading, and admission to the evening open mic event featuring a cappella poetry by Fleur-de-Lisa.

Payment:

Credit/Debit Card Online: Pay securely online using PayPal. You are not required to have a PayPal account. Your transaction will be handled as if it were a normal credit/debit card transaction. You will receive confirmation by email. To pay securely online, click the "Buy Now" button to the right.

Credit/Debit Card by Phone:call Kevin at 336-770-5353 to make payment by phone.

Check/Money Order: Reservations will be held for five days. If payment is not received, your selections will be cleared and offerded to first poet on the waitlist.

Mail Check/Money Order for $125 made payable to Press 53 to:

Press 53

PO Box 30314

Winston-Salem, NC 27130

When check is received, you will receive confirmation by email or phone.

Cancelations:

Full refund will be issued if canceled by March 10 (four weeks in advance)

Partial refund of $75 will be issued if canceled by March 31 (one week in advance)

No refund will be issued if canceled the week of the event (April 1-7)

Press 53 reserves the right to make last-minute changes due to cancelations by faculty. If a cancelation by faculty occurs, we will do our best to replace the workshop with an equally beneficial workshop, but no guarantees can be made.

Lodging: Need a hotel for your stay? We have a special rate secured of $79 per night with the Wingate by Wyndham, a short distance away, at 125 S. Main Street. Call 336-714-2800 and ask for the "Press 53 Rate."

Questions can be emailed to Kevin Watson at kevin@press53.com or by calling Kevin at 336-770-5353.

I will pay using:

Contribute any amount to our scholarship fund and we'll help out a poet in need.