The Winter Poem, Inside and Out (1-Day workshop/retreat)

In winter, we often feel the pull toward an inwardness not always supported by the demands of a fast-paced society.  Fortunately, this inward mood is perfectly suited to the reading and writing of poetry.  This day-long class, part poetry workshop and part retreat, focuses equally on the inner and outer aspects of winter.  In the morning session, we'll enjoy a spacious survey of poems of the northern winter, prominently featuring poets of our place who know our winters best, such as Freya Manfred, Robert Bly, Connie Wanek, and Tom Hennen.  Writing exercises for this half of the workshop will stress observation of winter weather and various "outside" phenomena.  Our afternoon session will go "inside," touching upon that necessary dream-work that nourishes our lives during the dark, cold time of year.  We will examine the role of memory in our writing about the short days and long nights of winter.  Respectfully borrowing the writer Frederick Manfred's adaptation of an Plains Indian practice, we will also write "winter count" poems about the past year's important events.  Participants can come away from this lively, yet reflective day with a refreshed readiness to write the poems of the new year.

Saturday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., February 18.  Contact:  612/379-8999 or www.loft.org.

Writing Poems with Heart (12 weeks)

This class is designed for poets who want to bring more honesty, courage, and openness into their poems.  Drawing on new and old metaphors of the heart, we'll attempt to balance thought and emotion in our work, locating areas of powerful feeling--heat or "heart" centers--in our lives to create poems of intensity and depth.  Along the way we'll explore the poetry of childhood and home place, the elegy and the love poem, poems of war and peace, and the poem that embraces the overlapping worlds of nature and human community.  We'll also look at the role played by language in expressing the "thought of the heart."  Sessions include lectures and group discussion of work by Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, Jane Hirshfield, Ted Kooser, Robert Bly, and other master poets.  This is a generative rather than an analytical course, with in-class writing exercises or opportunities to widen our expressive range.  The instructor will give written feedback on up to six poems per student.  Small copy fee.

Tuesdays, 6-8 p.m., March 6 - May 22.  Contact:  612/379-8999 or www.loft.org.

Reading for Writers:  Kinnell, Bly, Stafford (6 weeks)

One of the most fertile periods in the history of American poetry, the 1960s saw the emergence of three great original talents, Galway Kinnell, Robert Bly, and William Stafford.  Responsive to political and cultural currents of their times, each became an advocate for justice, peace, and the natural environment.  In addition, each of these three distinctive stylists put a personal stamp on American poetry in the second half of the twentieth century.  This class surveys Kinnell's Whitman-esque celebrations of nature and the body, Bly's fiery, psychologically sophisticated lyrics, and Stafford's subtle meditations on the American landscape and character, affirming their enduring significance for the 21st century.  In each session, we'll expore through exercises signature writing strategies of these poets.  Teaching artists offers to critique up to six poems per student.  Students purchase three paperback books as texts:  Kinnell, A New Selected Poems; Bly, Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems; Stafford, The Way It Is:  New and Selected Poems

Wednesdays, 5-7 p.m., March 14 - April 18.  Contact:  612/379-8999 or www.loft.org.