This 5-week class is an open-forum workshop in which students' interests will direct the nature and content of our discussions. I ask that students at the beginning of the workshop to think about and articulate their own aesthetics for writing poetry, and, thereafter, we will, as a workshop, examine submitted poems by the aesthetic that each poet is striving to achieve. I have gathered dozens of techniques and practices for lyric-narrative poetry that I hope to share, but rather than concentrating on formal lessons or textbook readings, students will direct the content of the workshop through their new or on-going work. Students will revise their poems based on the discussion and feedback to keep pushing themselves and fellow classmates toward their personal aesthetic.
Although the class is open to all, it will be of most benefit to those who have been writing poetry for some time and who are engaged with questions about their ongoing practice of writing.
Heinemann). He is also the author of a book-length poem, The Grand Unified Theory, which examines connections between science and faith. Between 1985 and 1992, he published a literary journal, sponsored contests, and conducted poetry events in Washington, DC, and Alexandria, Virginia. There, he also served as a member of the Folgers Poetry Committee for the Greater Washington, DC, Area. He is the former Division Director of NASA Ames Research Center's publishing, video, photography, and graphics department. As a writer for the Teacher-in-Space program, he has created educational science for students and educators, producing titles such as Spacesuit; How We Get Pictures from Space; Sentinels in the Sky; and Threshold of Space, and a Golden Book Space Machines (for Western Publishing).