How to Get a Spot in a QWF Workshop
Eight-week workshops: $170 per course ($150 for QWF members)
Quebec City workshop $150
Wakefield workshop and Saturday sessions: $75 each
Arts Journalism workshops $200 (some scholarships available)
Call or email the office to see if there's still space available, and register. Pay for the workshop by cheque, cash or via PayPal.
Pmt by cheque to:
Quebec Writers' Federation
1200 Atwater, Suite 3
Montreal
H3Z 1X4
or by cash at the QWF office (by appointment).
For more information:
(514) 933-0878
info@qwf.org
www.qwf.org
If you're paying with PayPal:
You must contact the office first to get registered. Log on to www.paypal.com and click "Send Money." Recipient's email address is admin@qwf.org In the "Note" box, provide your full name, email address, daytime phone number and the name of the workshop you're registering for.
Note that there is a small service charge for the convenience of paying with a credit card.
Quebec Writers' Federation Workshops
Spring Session 2008
Develop your writing with the mentorship of an acclaimed professional writer and feedback from your peers.
Workshops take place at the QWF office, Suite 3, Atwater Library unless otherwise indicated.
THE SECRET LIFE OF POEMS
Eight Tuesdays, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. . (March 4 – April 22)
1200 Atwater Avenue, Suite 3
Workshop leader: Robyn Sarah
Poetry is an art, a craft, and a tradition - not just an outlet for self-expression. The more you know about it, the more you can bring to your own poems. The medium for this art is language: the sounds, rhythms, and meanings of words, the multiple associations of words, the interplay of sound and sense. A poet's best teachers will always be the best poets of all periods and cultures - through the medium of their poems.
In this workshop, reading and critiquing of participants’ work will be balanced with appreciation and study of great poems, both classic and contemporary--some famous, some not, but all selected for what aspiring poets can learn from them. We'll explore aspects of poetry (e.g. metaphor, image, voice, rhyme) and we'll look at some traditional forms (haiku, sonnet, villanelle, sestina.) We’ll look at what different poets have had to say about their craft, how they defined poetry for themselves or re-defined it for their times. We’ll experiment with "found poetry" and collage poetry.
We will explore such questions as: What makes a poem work? What makes it a poem? What is the difference between free verse and chopped prose? What is a prose poem? How can poetry be musical without meter and rhyme? Is there such a thing as "poetic thinking" and if so, can it be taught or learned? What is "inspiration"? How does one go about revising a poem — and how does one know when to stop revising?
I will suggest exercises each week for those who want to try them, and I may ask participants to bring special materials (ranging from favorite poems and inspirational quotes to scissors, gluesticks, and glossy magazines) for particular sessions. Participants are responsible for making and bringing photocopies of their own poems for each workshop member, including the leader.
Suggested reading: Twentieth Century Poetry and Poetics (editor: Geddes) – any edition.
Robyn Sarah has published seven poetry collections (most recently A Day’s Grace), as well as two collections of short stories and a book of essays, Little Eurekas: A Decade’s Thoughts on Poetry (2007). Her writing has appeared widely in Canada and the United States, and her poems have been anthologized in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, and Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems for Hard Times. She edited The Essential George Johnston (Porcupine’s Quill, 2007) and is currently editing The Essential Don Coles and The Essential Margaret Avison for the same series. The French translation of her selected poems, Le tamis des jours, was published last fall.
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Eight-week workshops: $170 per course ($150 for QWF members) • Quebec City workshop: $150 • Wakefield workshop and Saturday sessions: $75 each • Arts Journalism workshops $200 (some scholarships available) • Call to register and for cancellation policy • Payment by cheque to Quebec Writers' Federation, 1200 Atwater, Suite 3, Montreal H3Z 1X4, by PayPal (additional fee-please check with office) or by cash at the QWF office (by appointment).
TO REGISTER, CALL (514) 933-0878
QWF gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts.
