Structural Excavations with Lisa Jarnot

This workshop poses the question, “What are the structural elements that make for a good poem?” The writing of workshop participants will be looked at alongside works by writers like Robert Hayden, Lorine Niedecker, Allen Ginsberg and Frank O’Hara. Poems will be excavated for patterns of sounds, meter, word etymologies, images and symbols, and students will write a few poems in the style of their favorite writers.

Lisa Jarnotis the author of four full-length collections of poetry—Some Other Kind of Mission, Ring of Fire, Black Dog Songs and Night Scenes—and a forthcoming biography of San Francisco poet Robert Duncan. She has taught poetry at Bard College.