This workshop is for those of us with a broken second heart that continually needs to be excised onto the page. It is designed for those poets, like me, who write the same poem again and again (aka "flood subjects), and are looking for ways to transform that trauma (or “mythic wound” as Tony Hoagland calls it) and create fresh, exciting work.

In this class, we'll seek new ways of approaching our imagery/creative nuclei in order to enliven/enlighten that which floods us. Cheryl Strayed calls it the “second heart” and writes about getting down on the floor to pull this second heart from one’s chest onto the page. I think of The Two Fridas, each with a heart, one broken.

Emily Dickinson’s flood subject is death, as evidenced in her corpus. Exercises will help identify our own flood subjects or bottom wells of creativity, where we can go inside of ourselves and (re)discover our deep matter, via magical realism, surrealism, and many others. Join me in the perpetual chrysalis. 

SOLD OUT

Teaching artist: Jennifer Givhan
Four weeks online / $300