The Self: Autobiography &/In Poetic Forms with Cynthia Manick

Six Thursdays, June 13–July 25
(skipping July 4)

What does it mean to be the cartographer of the self? To write about its multitudes when the body is a frequency of flesh and heart? We show different sides of ourselves to different people and we play different roles in our lifetimes—sister, brother, wife, lover, worker, etc. The class will explore different ways to document these roles and challenge poets to move beyond them through memory, sense, and voice. Participants will look at the work of Lucille Clifton, Ross Gay, Terrence Hayes, Brenda Shaughnessy, Vievee Francis, Ocean Vuong, and others who interrogate identity in various ways. We will use different forms including confessional, profile, praise, and direct address to explore the way the “self” can emerge on the page and create a suite of portraits.

Class Dates:
Thursday, June 13, 6-8:30pm
Thursday, June 20, 6-8:30pm
Thursday, June 27, 6-8:30pm
Thursday, July 11, 6-8:30pm
Thursday, July 18, 6-8:30pm
Thursday, July 25, 6-8:30pm

Cynthia Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). A Pushcart Prize–nominated poet with a MFA in Creative Writing from the New School, she has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, the MacDowell Colony, Poets House, and the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, among others. Winner of the 2016 Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry and the 2018 Elizabeth Sloan Tyler Memorial Award, Manick is the founder and curator of the reading series Soul Sister Revue. Her poem “Things I Carry Into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems, a organization dedicated to video poetry, and has debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month and Reel 13 Shorts. Manick’s work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, Bone Bouquet, Callaloo, Kweli Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, Muzzle Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Registration Deadline: Friday, June 7