There are two things a poet can do that will change the work for the positive and permanently: 1) teach poetry, and 2) serve on a literary journal. Teach what you want to learn has so much merit yet is often diminished. There are those who ascribe to the myth, Those who can, do; those … Read more
The workshop conversation regarding critique and how we may learn from each other, provide new lenses with which to observe our own work was such a prod to me that I chose to take a tact that I have done before: I distributed copies of one of my own poems that is particularly troubling me … Read more
This summer, as I focus on teaching adults rather than classrooms of school kids, a conversation surfaced in the poetry workshop regarding critique and suggestions from one writer to another. One of the workshop participants took issue with another participant for the habit of offering rewrite suggestions. He felt that it was against protocol to … Read more