Family Romance with Cyrus Cassells

This two-part workshop will explore the rewards and pitfalls of writing about family, using Louise Glück’s trenchant volume, Ararat, as a guide. Home is often the site of the keenest experiences of love and communion, and the source of the deepest wounding. How do poets reconcile this fact in their work? The first session will be a discussion of Ararat and key issues in writing about family, including truthtelling, self-censorship, family skeletons, and sentimentality. The second session will be devoted to student work.