The Long Poem Workshop

Instructor: Jay MillAr

And you have to go into the serial poem not knowing what the hell you’re doing. That’s the first thing. You have to be tricked into it. It has to be some path that you’ve never seen on a map before. I think all of my books as far as they’re successful have just followed the bloody path to see where it goes, and sometimes it doesn’t go anywhere. — Jack Spicer, 1965

This workshop is meant to investigate the trends of the “genre” of the North American Long (or “Serial”) Poem (with particular emphasis on reading Canadian Long Poems, while providing students with a safe haven from influences of the academy (except, as Philip Whalen suggested, in the strictest sense of the word: academy: a walking grove of trees) and the market so they may explore the possibilities a Long Poem form can have for them.

Required Text: The Long Poem Anthology, Sharon Thesen, ed (Talonbooks)

Course Work: Students are required to come to the first class prepared to share and discuss with the group an idea they have for a long or serial poem. All subsequent classes will then be run beginning with reading and discussion of work in The Long Poem Anthology, followed by sharing and discussing original writing in the context of problems and successes that arise in relation to the student’s original ideas presented in Class 1. The notion of “failure” will be addressed throughout the course, especially in the context of the Spicer quote provided at the beginning of this course description. Students will be continually asked to evaluate whether or not they are following the path their original idea projected for them.

Duration: 10 Weeks, JAN 25 – MAR 29, 2-5 pm, (Tuesday Afternoons)

Capacity: 6 students

Cost: $350