Your Poetry Toolbox

When it comes to writing poetry, are you uncertain about what makes a poem “good”?

Do you occasionally respond to a situation in your life by writing a poem, but are then uncertain about showing it to anyone else in case it’s “bad” poetry?

Would you like to add some poet’s tools to your writer’s craft toolbox?

Howard Nemerov (twice Poet Laureate of the USA) famously said that “Poetry is the other way of using language.”

In this 2 hour workshop, Your Poetry Toolbox, James Dewar will be exploring what makes poetry “other”.

We’ll do this through looking at several marvelous examples of poems to see why they are “good poems” – we’ll explore what tools have been used to make them so vivid and moving.

You’ll come to understand more about the writer’s craft tools available to you when you want to write a poem.  Bonus: as a prose writer, you’ll be able to use these tools to tune up your prose as well, to add a lyrical element to it.

In short interactive exercises you’ll develop the germs of some of your own poetry that can be expanded on and explored further once the workshop is over.

Workshop will be via Zoom, Sunday, January 10, 2021 from 1:30 to 4:30 pm. Pre-registration ends January 8, 2021. Please register below. Instructions for logging into Zoom will be sent the week before the meeting. Be sure to click on + to add a ticket before clicking on “Get Ticket” below.

James Dewar is a publisher, producer, teacher, editor and writer.

He teaches poetry and fiction workshops in the Metropolitan Toronto area and at Uplands Writing Retreats located in the heart of The Oak Ridges Moraine near Uxbridge, Ontario.

He was awarded the Teaching Excellence Certificate while teaching advanced creative writing at Durham College.

He particularly enjoys working in the company of other novelists in the year-long workshop he teaches, A Novel Approach to Fiction SECOND DRAFT.