Longer Poems, Or The Present As Illogical Complication – Anselm Berrigan

Anselm Berrigan will be teaching a ten-week long Friday evening workshop, beginning February 12, 2010. The class will meet in the Parish Hall from 7-9 pm.

This workshop will focus heavily on the reading and discussion of longer poems and the visible and invisible strategies for creating and sustaining shape and momentum evident within their reading. “Longer” may run anywhere from ten to fifty pages, as things move, but there can be exceptions on the shorter side depending on a work’s density. The aim on the writing side will be to initiate a process through which one may develop a longer work, while asking a hopefully expansive set of questions about what there may be to know through the experience of reading and writing longer poems. We will read a selection of longer things by, among others, Douglas Oliver, Harryette Mullen, Allen Ginsberg, Kevin Davies, Philip Whalen, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Stephen Rodefer, Claudia Rankine, Alice Notley, Will Alexander, Ann Lauterbach, Robert Fitterman, and Marcella Durand. The starting point in most cases will be to read the work aloud in the church and go from there. Bring your throats and stamina.

Anselm Berrigan is author of four books of poetry, the most recent being Free Cell, published recently by City Lights. Works of his which fall into the longer range include “Have A Good One”, “To Hell With Sleep”, “Zero Star Hotel”, and possibly “Trained Meat”.