Holly Walrath's Blog, page 12
August 15, 2020
Fall 2020 Workshops
Poetry Barn Self-Paced Course: Writing Resistance Through Erasure, Found Text & Visual Poetry
DATE: Ongoing
TIME: Asynchronous, Self-paced
PRICE: $99
Hybrid poetry forms can be a powerful form of resistance. From Jerrod Schwarz’s erasure of Trump’s inaugural speech to Niina Pollari’s black outs of the N-400 citizenship form, contemporary poets are engaging with the world through text, creating new and challenging works of art. Heralded by the rise of the “Instapoet,” visual works are a way to take poetry one step further by crafting new forms and structures that often transcend the page.
In this four-module independent study workshop, you’ll study the forms of poetry that draw from outside sources and texts, learning how artists are reshaping the narrative of resistance and how to draw from news, media, canonical works, and other found texts to create our own work in conversation with the current world.
Shortly after you register, you’ll receive an email containing an invitation to create an account and begin learning. (Please note: This class does not include feedback or interaction with the instructor or other learners.)
Writespace: Poetry Critique (Synchronous 1-Day Workshop)
DATE: Saturday, October 10th 1-4pm CST
TIME: Online, Synchronous
In this workshop, we'll focus on four fundamentals that editors look for in poetry. It's one thing to write poems, it's another to start sending out your work to publishers. How do you know if the poem "works"? How can you revise a poem so it stands out in a slush pile? We'll focus on reading poetry like an editor, with an eye towards structure, word choice, content, and first and last lines. This is a critique workshop, so participants will be asked to submit up to two poems (max 4 pages) in advance.
Writespace: Introduction to Found Poetry (Online 4-Week Workshop)
DATE: Sunday, October 4th - Sunday, November 1st
TIME: Online, Asynchronous
Found poetry is an umbrella term encompassing any poem that uses an outside source text to create a new original poem. Found texts may include but are not limited to: Newspapers, books, periodicals, graffiti, other poems, street signs, advertisements, propaganda, online media, Twitter posts, or anything with words that can be rearranged, erased, cut-out, or reformulated to create a new and wholly original piece of poetry. In this workshop, we'll learn the history of erasure and create our own found poems using methods of erasure or blackout, headline poetry, collage, remixing, cutting, cento poems, acrostic or golden shovel poems, and/or found title poems.
This is a four-week workshop that takes place completely online. Participants will get the chance to write one poem a week and will be required to critique at least 2 other student's work each week. You may want to have a camera or phone with a camera (a scanner works great too) to upload photos of your poems, but this is not a requirement.
Writespace: Journaling Your Way to a Better Writing Life (Online 4-Week Workshop)DATE: Sunday, November 8th - December 6th
TIME: Online, Asynchronous
Writers are observers. One way to keep track of your observations and ideas is through a writing journal. In this workshop, we'll cover the basics of journaling for writers. Not just as a method of processing and keeping track of your thoughts, but as a method of improving your writing life and working towards a career as a writer. We'll cover tracking your writing, how to manage large ideas or projects, tracking submissions, creating goals, revising in a journal, and more, all while exploring popular methods of journaling to find the one that works for you. If you feel out of sorts or disorganized in your writing life, this workshop is for you!
This is a four-week workshop that takes place completely online. You may want to purchase a simple notebook to try out the techniques on your own. You'll be asked to share one journaling exercise a week and give feedback on each other's work.
August 11, 2020
New Poem at Twisted Moon Mag
I have a new poem up at Twisted Moon Mag, Issue 5: We Hold Up Eternity You make me into all of your favorite things. Wax-winged, you model my body to your likeness. Everything must be similar, the remains. You step upon my altar, run a finger along my lips, lick the dust from your skin. It tastes like skin cells and sweat and stardust...
Read the whole poem here . . .
June 22, 2020
A Queer Poem a Day
Hey y’all! I’m doing another Instagram poetry challenge this month. My goal is to write a queer poem a day in celebration of Pride Month. You can follow along on my Instagram account @Holly__Lyn. I started this for fun, as a way to process my feelings about Pride Month and what it means to me, so I hope you enjoy reading along.
Here's a link to the post with all the poems in one place.
New Poem up at Liminality: Acacia
I have a new poem up today at Liminality: A Magazine of Speculative Poetry. This poem is called “Acacia,” and it’s named after a plant commonly used in rituals and spellcraft.Use to anoint torches and consecrate hope chests. Endows protection as well as psychic and mystical powers. If planted inside a fairy ring, it will bring prosperity to the closest home. If burned, it creates a hypnotic state that is often perilous.
TW: This poem deals with illness and cancer.
Read the poem at Liminality
June 18, 2020
How to Hook a Reader on the First Page
Agents and editors are looking for submissions that quickly set themselves apart. The stand-out submissions are fairly easy to locate. While all of slushing is somewhat subjective (as far as taste goes, we all have different loves and hates), I’ve noticed that there are a couple of things that are distinguishable between the stories I loved from a slush pile and the ones I passed over quickly.Read the full article here . . .
June 1, 2020
New Poem at Write Wild: She Learns How to Disappear
She memorizes the little spaces she could hide in —the white place between letters on the page,
the dashboard — a blushing radio throne . . .
Read the poem at Write Wild . . .
New Essay at write Wild: Are Writing Contests Worth Entering?
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about contests and writing fees, in one handy article. Writing contests abound. There are 695 contests on Duotrope’s listing of prizes and contests for poetry alone. There are writing contests run by big magazines and writing contests by little academic journals. Some contests pay a great deal, upwards of thousands of dollars, while others may pay a smaller amount. Some contests come with publication, others are a cash payout only. In some ways, this pay-to-pay model mirrors the way artists submit their work, often asked to pay a fee to be a part of an exhibition or gallery.Read the whole article here . . .
New Story Up at Curious Fictions: Tarot of the Animal Lords
There are many ways to play this game. In the forest of secrets, the past is always the first card drawn. To interpret the cards, one must keep in mind the divinatory and symbolic meaning of every single card. This works best in partners—an oracle and a querient. If a card appears upside down, its meaning changes, suggesting the opposite. These other meanings may be seen as yin and yang, black and white, dark and light, but the best oracles learn how to read between the lines...Read the full story at Curious Fictions . . .
May 4, 2020
New Story at Curious Fictions: knick knack, knick knack
When you were a child, white skulls used to follow you through the woods. You tried to catch a glimpse of them, but when you turned your head their skeleton bodies would disappear, fading into the canopy. Only their bone-voices remained, clacking through the trees, knick knack, knick knack . . .Read the full story at Curious Fictions . . .
April 27, 2020
My Favorite Poetry Writing Prompt is Also the Simplest
I've read a lot of writing prompts in my time, and they all suck. Seriously. What is with this “Write a poem about a man who finds a dog on the side of the road and then he brings it home and then it eats his shoe . . .” prompt bull-honkey? (Okay, I made that prompt up, but that’s how most of them sound.)Read the full article here . . .
