The Looseleaf Writing Workshop Series presents the craft expertise of Sycamore Review staffers and the Creative Writing Program at Purdue to the community of the Greater Lafayette area through cooperation with local schools and libraries.
During the 2009-2010 academic year, Looseleaf volunteers will be leading storytelling sessions at the New Community School in West Lafayette, in addition to presenting classroom craft workshops at various other local schools. Looseleaf also plans to hold workshops at the Tippecanoe Public Library in the spring.
Tippecanoe Public Library Workshops
The Love Poem in the Information Age
Monday, February 8, 6:30-8pm
Workshop Leader: Eric Scovel
In the age of e-mail, text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, technologies which threaten to make all communication the mouthpieces of superficial, public representation of ourselves, how do we write a highly personal poetry that speaks to the deepest and most vulnerable of emotions? And in a time when the fear of identity theft runs high, how can we manage to freely and openly give ourselves away to someone in verse? This workshop will focus on constructing a voice and presence on the page that is written both to a public and deeply private audience, and expresses an authentic love while avoiding superficiality and sentimentality.
Gainful Employment: Writing Poems About Work
Monday, March 8, 6:30-8pm
Workshop Leader: Ruth Joynton
Love, Death, Friendship, Family–these are poetry’s classic subjects. But what about poems written in honor of Work? So much of our lives are spent there, in upstairs offices, in front of the computer’s white glow, in hot warehouses or wiping tables in greasy spoons, answering telephones or making calls. Each type of work is interesting in its own way. Indeed it has served as inspiration for poets such as William Carlos Williams and Rita Dove. Join Ruth Joynton in an exploration of work poetry and write a few of of your own!
The Pink Flamingo is Your Eternal Friend
Monday, April 12, 6:30-8pm
Workshop Leader: Josh Wild
Description: What do you do when you sit down to write a poem and nothing happens? Or everything that comes out feels about as exciting as the inner life of a can of chickpeas? Sometimes your best bet is to stop making sense, to take a dip in the waters of the surreal. André Breton described surrealism as “pure psychic automatism,” total freedom of the mind to say what it wants, to make whatever leaps it decides to make. So let Marlon Brando foxtrot with a carnivorous Rubik’s Cube! Sometimes the only thing standing between the poem and the page is you. Join us as we explore different methods of poetic discovery that involve getting out of the way and letting your unconscious take a turn. And we promise: no Brandos will be endangered in the process.
Metaphor and the Renewal of Words
Monday, May 10, 6:30-8pm
Workshop Leader: Mario Chard
Perhaps the most peculiar of Robert Frost’s definitions of poetry is one he wrote in a letter to a friend, suggesting that poetry is that thing “by which the world is never old.” Taken in light of his more famous assertion that poetry is essentially metaphor, we can then assume that Frost (like many others) not only placed metaphor at the center of poetry, but also at the center of making words–and “the world”–anew. How should we then define metaphor? And how can we use metaphor (and its varied forms) in our poems to make something new in a world that frequently tells us that everything’s already been written? Come join and further this discussion and workshop based on the varied use of metaphor in poetry.
Managing Editor Kathleen Connor directs the program. You can contact her at kconnor@purdue.edu for more information.
