 Poems often develop through indirection, by hinting or gesturing at their meaning, by circling and circling without any obvious arrival. This is an intriguing element of poems—it leaves room for mystery, for the intellectual play of interpretation; it keeps us coming back for more—but this indirection can also be a bedeviling element of poetry. In this generative workshop, we will examine poems by Rainer Marie Rilke and Lucille Clifton, that include varying degrees of revelation. After a discussion of the poems, workshop members will write epiphanic poems based on a prompt and, time permitting, will have the opportunity to share their work.REGISTER HERE!About the Instructor: Iain Haley Pollock is the author of three poetry collections, Spit Back a Boy (2011), Ghost, Like a Place (Alice James, 2018), and the forthcoming All the Possible Bodies (Alice James, September 2025). His poems have appeared in numerous other publications, ranging from American Poetry Review to The New York Times Magazine and The Progressive. Pollock has received several honors for his work including the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Poetry, the Bim Ramke Prize for Poetry from Denver Quarterly and a nomination for an NAACP Image Award. He serves as Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY, where he also edits the literary journal Inkwell. |
