Finding the Art in the Line with Elaine Sexton

Poems are structures: the way words appear on the page—the use of white space, typography, order, disorder. We step into a poem as we would a new building we admire: curious, but from the outside. That the origin of the word stanza is from the Italian for room makes sense. What draws us into the delicate, vivid, and sometimes disturbing rooms of a memorable poem? Each week we search for the answers, finding them in the scaffolding of the poem, identifying the visual and sonic devices that contribute to its space including the use of erasures and other forms of ellipsis. Part craft-class, this workshop is made up of lessons, assignments, and constructive critiques. Handouts will serve as a primer and include work by poets ranging from Elizabeth Bishop and Wallace Stevens to Louise Glück and Terrance Hayes. Participants will look at new poems by Ross Gay, Rigoberto Gonzalez, and Warsan Shire as examples of how voice, tone, and imagery transform a subject, common to all, such as “home.” Participants will complete this six-week workshop with at least as many new strategies to apply to their next poem as weeks spent together.

Elaine Sexton is a poet, critic, teacher, and micro-publisher. Her third collection of poetry, Prospect/Refuge, was published in 2015. Her work has appeared widely in anthologies, textbooks, and journals including American Poetry Review, Art in America, Oprah Magazine, and Poetry. Formerly a senior editor at ARTnews, she teaches poetry and text & image workshops at the Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and various art and writing centers around the country. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

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