In this two-day intensive poetry writing seminar, our aim will be to employ various generative procedures to produce raw material that can be transformed, through revision, into effective poems. If this class had a motto, it would be: “Let us surprise ourselves!” To enact this motto, we will make use of aleatory methods, collage techniques, arbitrary limitations, and other strategies to deactivate the habits of mundane thinking, aiming, instead, to access deeper layers of the psyche. These activities will be undertaken in a spirit of play, mutual support, and experimentation.
CHRISTOPHER BREAN MURRAY’S book, Black Observatory, was chosen by Dana Levin as the winner of the 2021-2022 Jake Adam York Prize. It was recently published by Milkweed Editions. He has received awards from the Academy of American Poets and Inprint, and he served as online poetry editor of Gulf Coast. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, Washington Square Review, and other journals. He lives in Houston, Texas.
