Eliminating inspiration with Holly Isemonger
Dates: Choose either Sunday 14 August at 11am AEST or Thursday 18 August at 6.30pm AEST
This workshop will focus on getting around the troubling idea that you need to be “inspired” to write poetry. People trying to write often seem to get stuck between old “rules” (rhyming, Sonnet structures, and so on) and “free verse,” where the lack of rules can be paralysing.
Drawing on the techniques of the Oulipo and other “formalist games” we’ll see how we can turn writing poetry into a productive kind of game, into a real kind of play. We’ll keep in mind that poetry is not just about translating something you already know or feel, but discovering what you know or feel through the process of writing. We will lower the stakes. But this approach to poetry doesn’t mean that the results generated are trivial or without beauty or power. Play can be profound, and playing with words is poetry.
Outcome:
You will generate at least three poems in this workshop using various exercises, which you can consider finished, or continue to work on outside of the workshop.
You will leave the program with a 'tool box' of various exercises, constraints and generative processes for producing poems.
You will gain an understanding of how to 'find the poem' in the texts you produce.
What you need to participate:
Zoom and a reliable Internet connection
This workshop is suitable for:
Poets of all experience levels
Ticketing:
Tickets are priced on a sliding scale, from concession ($30) to full ($40) to generous supporter ($50, i.e. subsidise a concession ticket by choosing to pay a bit extra).
Festival pass holders receive a free ticket to ONE of our upcoming professional development workshops. If you want to book a ticket for Eliminating Inspiration, choose Festival Pass Holder as your ticket option in the dropdown menu.
One free ticket is reserved for a person experiencing financial hardship — please get in touch.
Upon booking, you will receive email confirmation and, closer to the workshop, further instructions and a Zoom link.
About your facilitator:
Holly Isemonger is a poet, critic and editor. She was the joint winner of the Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in journals such as Cordite, Overland and Westerly and she is the author of the chapbooks Hip Shifts (If A Leaf Falls Press) and Deluxe Paperweight (Stale Objects dePress). She can be found at @Hisemonger on Twitter.