This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House.

The Lyric Poem as a Relational Process

Be patient that I address you in a poem,

there is no other

fit medium.

–William Carlos Williams, “To Daphne and Virginia”

The word “lyric” comes from Latin lyricus, meaning “of or for the lyre,” and Greek lyrikos “singing to the lyre.” Originally meant to be performed, sung, or read aloud, it now usually refers to a short poem, often with songlike qualities, that expresses the personal feelings of a first-person speaker or a “lyric I.” Edward Hirsch describes the lyric poem as “a special kind of communiqué between an I and a You”: “a highly concentrated and passionate form of communication…an immediate, intense, and unsettling form of literary discourse.” The poem mediates the relationship between the reader and the writer.

In this two-day intensive workshop, we shall explore the lyric poem as a relational process. This means that something is happening in a lyric poem between a You and an I, the speaker and their audience, the lover and the beloved, the poet and the reader. These are shifting positions: a reader may occupy the position of the beloved You, and thus become the addressee of the poem, or the reader may identify with the I of the poem and become the addressor. There is a generosity and a special kind of intimacy to this exchange. We will consider how treating the lyric not only as a literary product but a relational process changes the ways in which we read and write poems. We will read and discuss poets including Claudia Rankine, Louise Glück, Terrance Hayes and others; generate new work and workshop our poems. Participants will be invited to read their poems to the class. This workshop is open to writers of all levels.