POETRY

Finding the Poem with Barbara Alfaro

ONLINE: Thursdays, January 19–February 23, Noon–1:30pm • $84

Reading fine poetry often sparks new poems of your own. Find inspiration, share your work, and gain feedback from others who enjoy reading, writing, and responding to poetry. We will read poems by Galway Kinnell, Wendell Berry, Hans Ostrom, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, and Lucille Clifton. Join this class and be inspired by these favorite American poets. Barbara Alfaro is a Carnegie Center Author Academy mentor and the award-winning author of Mirror Talk, a memoir; Theatre Mad, a collection of comedies; and Catbird, a book of poems. [ALL LEVELS]

Poetry for Beginners with Linda Freudenberger

Saturday, January 28, 10:30am–12:30pm • $35

Wanting to try your hand at poetry, but feel intimidated? Join Carnegie Center Author Academy and Poetry Gauntlet graduate Linda Freudenberger for a two-hour introductory class that will show you the basics and get you started on your own poetry journey. This workshop will involve lecture and class participation so that you can both learn and explore this wonderful genre. [BEGINNER]

The Ekphrastic Haiku with Kevin Nance

Saturday, February 11, 10:30am–12:30pm • $35

Since its beginnings as a medium to record and interpret the wanderings of the poet Bashō through 1 7 th-century Japan, the haiku has been, and largely remains, an observational form. It’s rooted, first and foremost, in the poet’s direct experience of the world via the five senses, sight most of all. Haiku can also be inspired by the visual arts, including painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography. In this class, participants will be led through a series of exercises designed to create simple visual images and then write haiku in response to them. We’ll also work off of some ready-made visuals—some representational, some more abstract—as the basis for fresh explorations of this ancient form. Kevin Nance is a writer/photographer and the author of two collections of ekphrastic haiku, Even If (University of Kentucky Arts in HealthCare, 2020) and Midnight (Act of Power Press, 2022). [ALL LEVELS]

How to Write Poetry with Sass with Linda Bryant Davis

Mondays, March 13 & 20, 5:30– 7 pm • $35

In this workshop we’ll look at several poets—from the well-known (Kim Addonizio) to the relatively unknown (Meaghan Strimas, a Canadian poet)—who succeed at writing sassy poems with edge and attitude. Their strategies for writing poems include employing unlikely juxtapositions, using giddy language, and subverting a reader’s expectations. We’ll write our own punchy poems and, hopefully, laugh a lot. Linda Bryant Davis lives and writes from Berea, Kentucky, where she runs Owsley Fork Writers Sanctuary, a rural retreat where writers and artists can work on special projects. [ALL LEVELS]

Poetry Writing with Jeff Worley

Wednesdays, April 12–May 1 7 , 5:45– 7 :15pm • $84

Spend some time in a workshop setting writing new poems, revising old ones, and sharing your poems with others in class. We will work on the basic stuff of poetry: imagery, the use of sound to fortify meaning, lineation, and various approaches to formal structure and free-verse structure. We’ll support each other to improve drafts of poems and discuss various strategies for writing the contemporary poem. Jeff Worley, Kentucky Poet Laureate for 2019–2020, is a veteran poetry teacher at the Carnegie Center who has published 10 collections of poetry and has won statewide, regional, and national awards for his writing. His newest book, The Poet Laureate of Aurora Avenue: Selected Poems, is now available from Broadstone Books in Frankfort, Black Swan Books in Lexington, or from the instructor. Recommended Text: What Comes Down to Us: 25 Contemporary Kentucky Poets edited by Jeff Worley. [INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED]

The Songbird Meets the Storyteller: Unlocking the Lyric Narrative Within with Andrew McFadyen– Ketchum

Saturday, April 22, 10:30am–12:30pm • $35

Typically, we label poems as either lyric or narrative: there are poems that tell stories from our lives and there are poems that sing the songs of the self. What if you can have it both ways? What if the songbird can spin a yarn while trilling its song? We will examine what it means when we call a poem lyrical versus narrative and how poets through the ages have merged these two forms into a new form, lyric-narrative, that will broaden your understanding of poetry as well as the possibilities of your own poetry. Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum is the author of three collections of poetry, a professional editor, Assistant Director of the Owsley Fork Writers Sanctuary in Berea, KY, and lead instructor of creative writing at Colorado Community College. Learn more at AndrewMK.com.

[ALL LEVELS]

The Voice of a Poem: A Generative Workshop with Marianne Worthington

Saturday, May 20, 10:30am–12:30pm • $35

This generative workshop will explore ways to focus on the voice of a poem—that unique presence that speaks a poem. We will work to claim and speak our memories and give ourselves permission to speak in our own voices. We’ll also study methods to claim the essence of other voices and practice writing poems in a persona. This workshop can help us explore how we can use voice to change our perspectives, try out other voices, and discover empathy. At the end of the class, you will have at least three drafts for new poems. Marianne Worthington is the author of the poetry collection The Girl Singer, winner of the 2022 Weatherford Award, and the co-founder and poetry editor of Still: The Journal. [ALL LEVELS]