The Language of Poetry
Presented by Deborah Brown, award winning poet – part one
The Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun wrote:
The poet is a hunter, not an expresser. You express what you already have. The inexpressible is like the beast in the woods that the hunter always knows only by its tracks. The very fact that we can’t describe it adequately now, searching as we are with various metaphors and similes, shows what a powerful thing it is, what attraction it has.
In this two-session workshop participants will focus on the language of poetry, primarily image, metaphor, and simile to track our individual beasts and meanings. You will consider a few examples from contemporary poetry ( including “Tu Do” by Yusef Komunyaka) and experiment with an exercise that helps with following our own tracks in language. We’ll conclude with a prompt for you to work with; the results may, if you wish, be discussed in our next workshop.
Deborah Brown’s recent book, The Human Half was published by BOA Editions in April, 2019. Her first book “ Walking the Dog’s Shadow,” was a winner of the A. J. Poulin Jr. Award from BOA Editions and of a New Hampshire Literary Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry. The title poem of the collection was awarded a Pushcart Prize. She edited, with Maxine Kumin and Annie Finch, Lofty Dogmas: Poets on Poetics (Univ. of Arkansas Press). With Richard Jackson and Susan Thomas, she translated the poems in Last Voyage: Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli (Red Hen Press). She lives in Warner, NH.
WHERE: The workshop will be held at The Ford House on the campus of SNHU (2500 North River Road, Manchester, NH 03106 — Directions and parking info here)
WHEN: Saturday, November 23, 2019, 10 am to noon ; Part Two is on Saturday, December 7th, 2019. NOTE This is a two part workshop. You must register for each part separately. Part two information is below.
COST: This workshop is $65 for NHWP members or $85 for nonmembers and is limited to 12 students. Register now to ensure your spot in the class using this URL: https://nhwp.z2systems.com/np/clients/nhwp/eventRegistration.jsp?event=796&
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The Language of Poetry, with Deborah Brown, PART TWO (Workshop)
Saturday December 7, 2019, 10:00am-12:00pm
This workshop continues the discussion of the language of poetry. Participants will look at a few more contemporary poems and then, we hope, turn to their work for discussion.
If you decide to submit a poem for critique, make sure the poem is one you are interested in working on and revising. In critique, we’ll focus on one or two aspects, diction and image, or metaphor, or unity—writer’s choice, not so much “criticizing” as analyzing what has occurred on the page.
WHERE: The workshop will be held at The Ford House on the campus of SNHU (2500 North River Road, Manchester, NH 03106 — Directions and parking info here)
WHEN: Saturday, December 7, 10:00 am-1:00 pm
COST: This workshop is $65 for NHWP members or $85 for nonmembers and is limited to 12 students. Register now to ensure your spot in the class using this URL: https://nhwp.z2systems.com/np/clients/nhwp/eventRegistration.jsp?event=797&
NOTE This is a two part workshop. You must register for each part separately. You can find Part One here.
Click HERE to apply for the NH Youth Poet Laureate program, sponsored by the Poetry Society of NH:
The PSNH reading at 
