So Long, Reality: Writing the Fantastical with Idra Novey

In this workshop, we will move beyond straight-up reality in our poems and see what surprising turns and new meanings reveal themselves when we incorporate surreal elements and occurrences into our work. How do poets write their way into the fantastical? And what role does humor play in getting there? For inspiration, we’ll read excerpts from Alice Notley’s Descent of Alette, poems from Cesar Vallejo, Julio Cortazar, James Wright, Cathy Park Hong, Tomaz Salamun, Hiromi Ito, and many others.

Idra Novey is the author most recently of Clarice: The Visitor, a collection of poems and images in collaboration with the artist Erica Baum. Her debut novel Ways to Disappear is forthcoming from Little, Brown in 2016. Earlier poetry collections include Exit, Civilian, selected by Patricia Smith for the 2011 National Poetry Series, and The Next Country. Her most recent translation is Clarice Lispector’s novel The Passion According to G.H. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.

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