Riddles, Parables, and Other Alternatives to the Lyric Poem with Geoffrey Hilsabeck

Poetry has been written not just to emote but to provide instruction, to curse and heal, and, who knows, maybe even to aid the soul in its journey to the next world, as the ancient Egyptians thought their spells did. While the language for these other forms and purposes of poetry—the language of riddles, spells, oracles, kennings, parables—has vanished from any but the most rarefied conversations about poetry, the impulse to utter them remains. In this workshop, we will read and write in and around those genres, not against the lyric but on either side of it.

Instructor Geoffrey Hilsabeck is the author of the collection Riddles, Etc.