The Heart Never Rests: Writing Lyric Poetry (Afternoon)
with Tim Seibles
Lyric: 2) a poem of a type that expresses the writer’s emotions
Almost always, we write poems because a feeling has driven us to say something. It seems we can’t help but lead with our hearts. Given this, it’s clear that all poems—narrative, pastoral, political—have lyrical aspects. The emotions fueling the words may be gentle or volcanic, but most often, we write to express exactly how we feel about an idea or event that affects our lives. As poets, however, we want to find language that compels others to feel with us, words that speak meaningfully to the reader. We’ve all been gripped by poems written by someone we’ve never met, sometimes by poems written centuries before we were born.
But how is it done? How can we write poems that touch someone whose life may be utterly separate from our own? In this workshop, we will read emotively rich poems and, using writing prompts, develop some useful knowledge about how such poems are written. Come ready to read, think hard, and write.
4 Afternoons: Monday 11/10–Thursday 11/13 | 1:30-4:30pm
$795.00
Out of stock
Tim Seibles was born in Philadelphia in 1955. He was the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2016 to 2018. His poems engage many aspects of life, from the romantic to the sociopolitical to the mystical. He is a former National Endowment for the Arts fellow and Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellow.
His seven books include Hurdy-Gurdy, Hammerlock, Buffalo Head Solos, and Fast Animal, a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award, winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and the Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Poetry. One Turn Around the Sun, an extensive examination of his immediate family was released in 2017.
In the last year, Tim has also written poems for two monuments. One in Norfolk, dedicated to the Norfolk 17 who began the fearful process of integrating Virginia public schools, the other for an installation in Dallas, Texas, that addresses the many race-based lynchings that took place there.
His poems have appeared in several anthologies. Among them: In Search of Color Everywhere, Seriously Funny, Uncommon Core, This is The Honey, and Villanelles. Seibles’ works have also been featured in Best American Poetry 2010, 2013, 2023. His latest collection, Voodoo Libretto: New & Selected Poems was published by Etruscan Press in 2020.