Poems often contain many ghosts: historical, ancestral, former versions of the self. In this workshop, we will explore two strategies for haunting our poems: erasure and collage.
We will look at "pure" erasure, wherein the poet removes portions of a text while maintaining the original sequence of the words to create a new piece. For collage, we will examine how poems can incorporate found text that is interwoven with original poetry. By looking closely at sample poems, we will consider craft questions such as: What happens when we consider erasure as a form of discovery and invention rather than depletion? How does a collage poet establish a unique voice while incorporating found text? How do we cultivate tension and dialogue between the “old” and “new”?
Using sample poems from poets like Philip Metres, Solmaz Sharif, Srikanth Reddy, and Ronald Johnson as models, participants will compose their own poems incorporating found text. This class will be a mix of discussion, generative writing, and workshop.
Submitting poems to workshop is optional; however, everyone is expected to participate in providing feedback. This class is best suited for those who have some experience writing and workshopping poetry.
Our class platform works best on laptop or desktop computers. Class meetings will be held over video chat, using Zoom accessed from your private class page. While you can use Zoom from your browser, we recommend downloading the desktop client so you have access to all platform features. The Zoom calls will have automated transcription enabled. Please let us know ([email protected]) if you have any questions or concerns about accessibility.
Check out this page for details about payment plans and discount opportunities.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- Strengthen your craft analysis muscles through class discussion
- Generate new work using collage and erasure
- Build community with fellow writers, share work, and receive feedback
- 10% discount on all future Catapult classes
COURSE EXPECTATIONS:
- Complete readings and actively participate in class discussion
- Engage with writing prompts to craft new work during class
- Optional: submit poem(s) for workshop to receive feedback
- Provide written and oral feedback to writers who submit poems for workshop
- Be open, take risks!
COURSE SKELETON:
Week 1: Collage
Week 2: Workshop
Week 3: Erasure
Week 4: Workshop
Tiana Nobile is the author of Cleave (Hub City Press, 2021). She is a Korean American adoptee, Kundiman fellow, and recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. A finalist of the National Poetry Series and Kundiman Poetry Prize, her writing has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The New Republic, Guernica, and the Texas Review, among others. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. For more, visit www.tiananobile.com
“Tiana Nobile has created that rare gift: a collection of poems that not only springs from experiential knowledge but also offers insight on and says something new about the America in which we’re currently living. CLEAVE is a stunning debut that will help us, “carry ourselves into the realms of light,” which we find ourselves searching for as we navigate our lives in the most challenging of times. Between the vulnerability in these poems and the music of their lines, Nobile proves a master at using her history and ours to make a better world for today. And love in every form—that which we cling to, and that which we separate from—resonates throughout.”
“In Tiana Nobile's wonderful CLEAVE, the condition of the Korean-American adoptee is that of a wandering orbitless moon. The speaker fills the absence of her birth mother with aching questions of home, motherhood, and selfhood. Using the scant documentation she has with her deeply felt imagination, Nobile obsessively revisits the mystery of her birth until she creates her own mythic origin story that is beautiful, melancholic and powerful. Tiana Nobile is a bright new talent.”
“CLEAVE is not only the story of a transnational adoption. Because of Tiana Nobile’s compassionate imagination and lucid discernment, CLEAVE becomes the story of all our lost selves, of the mothers we long for and the languages we struggle to speak. Writing with what Audre Lorde calls the ‘intimacy of scrutiny,’ Nobile uncovers in the mysteries of her origins our most difficult truths, observing ‘How we feed on each other for ourselves. / How we keep ourselves alive through each other.’ This is an accomplished debut by a powerfully precise poet.”
