The Whole Poem with Neil Shepard

From first draft to final draft, we require strategies for seeing the whole poem, both its full potential for content and its most satisfying form. We require, as Charles Olson said, the intense perception of the first draft—to “see” not only the spark but all of the light that makes a poem glow. Then we need to “re-see” the poem, practicing the kind of deep revision that leads us to reconsider everything from word choice and vivid image to metaphoric subtext, grammatical pattern, and inner music of the poem. We’ll use poems from such poets as Anne Carson, C. D. Wright, Yusuf Komunyakaa, Sharon Olds, Marilyn Nelson, Mark Doty, Rigoberto González, Ada Limón, Tyehimba Jess, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Arthur Sze, Reginald Shepherd, Tony Hoagland, Jane Hirshfield, Khaled Mattawa, and Naomi Shihab Nye to examine specific technical issues, but we’ll use your own poems as the focus and force of workshop discussion. In addition, we’ll consider writing exercises that might steer you toward new strategies and discoveries in making a poem.

Neil Shepard is the author of seven volumes of poetry, most recently Hominid Up (2015) and Vermont Exit Ramps II (2015). He has been the recipient fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. He is a founder and former director of the Writing Program at the Vermont Studio Center, and he taught for several decades in the BFA Creative Writing Program at Johnson State College. He teaches in the low-residency MFA Writing Program at Wilkes University (PA) and is the Founding Editor of the literary magazine Green Mountains Review.

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