History

Summer Writing Progam 2005
Week One: July 4 —July 10

Course #: Non-credit: WRI 051, tuition: $375 per week
Course #: BA: WRI 351, undergraduate tuition: $900 per week
Course #: MFA: WRI 651, graduate tuition: $1,230 per week

Meditative Poetics/ Poetics and Politics of Place

We will consider the wisdom of contemplative practice as it might relate to the artistic writerly path. Is there a conflict? What skillful means are required to do the work to keep a mind of negative capability functioning in an increasingly toxic and dangerous war-obsessed world with the excesses of nuclear proliferation & empire building at hand? The synchronization of body, speech and mind is recommended from the Buddhist tradition. Respect for other species, life forms and the environment towards a harmonious community (sangha) is part of the bodhisattva path. Taking one's seat is key to this, cutting through gossip and discursive chatter - respecting the community one inhabits & the efforts of others - seeing one's writing as both a document and a gift towards them and the world.

Image Speaking
Sherwin Bitsui
In this workshop we will attempt to enter the creative space by removing ourselves from the written work and letting the poetic image speak for itself. In this way we can get outside our drives for individual gain and into areas of articulation that reflect what is inherent in Diné language and thought as nihi the collective "we" "the belonging to us." In this space we may discover something, besides the economic, that binds us together.

Five Elements and Poetry
Reed Bye
At any given moment, what is Life (beyond another transcendent signifier)? How closely do we see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and think this notorious Life and how close does writing get to it? Here, for a week, we will work to open senses to earth, air, fire, water and space in things, and write it. We will begin each class with a short period of sitting meditation to settle thoughts and allow speech to be more directly in touch with what we sense, and work with various poetic forms as conductors for elemental energy as verbal play.

What's Funny?
Jack Collom
Philosopher Henri Bergson said what's funny is always "something mechanical encrusted upon the living." Hmm. Tim Dlugos wrote: "I take incredible / risks with my poems, / which is why they / always turn out / so fine." What's it all about? We'll write, discuss, and study this stuff.

The Aesthetics of Violence
Brian Evenson
This course will look at different strategies for describing and depicting violence in prose. To what degree can a literary text "do violence"? What ethics are involved in the depiction of violence? Monday and Tuesday we'll do exercises, read excerpts and discuss; Thursday and Friday we'll workshop student fiction.

The Possibilities of Narrative
Indira Ganesan
Here we'll experiment with language, voice, point of view, and setting to tell a story. Using works that mix poetry with prose as guides, such as those by Michael Ondaatje and Sandra Cisneros, we'll see how various narrative threads create compelling fiction. We will create both individual and collaborate pieces.

Place-Holding, the Illusion of Place-Held
Renee Gladman
The place you are leaving--once you've made your exit-falls away. It no longer exists. Or does it? You attempt to hold it "as was" in memory, in language or speech. But these acts serve only to further its placefullness, creating a liminal space. In this class we will interrogate the predicament of memory and desire with regard to the vanishing point--place in time. We will explore other such predicaments of place and read, discuss, and write wanderingly.

Printing With the Platen Press
Sally Green
Students will learn the introductory techniques of printing with the platen press, including setting type by hand, press adjustments, and the challenging art of make-ready. Each student will be responsible for contributing to a hands-on project. On-going information will be provided on resources (equipment, parts, and supplies), as well as some history of printing and small press publishing.

Bookbinding for the Small Press
Sam Green
Students will learn basic techniques of bookbinding to begin the course (stitching, signature preparation, etc.), dealing with both Western and Asian binding techniques, and at least one method of paper decoration, and will produce several projects during the week. Resource lists, bibliography, and some of the history of bookbinding will be provided.

Emptiness Is Full Of Everything
Joanne Kyger
We will read and discuss the poets of place and spirit, local and transcendent: Simon Ortiz, Jaime de Angulo, Maria Sabina, Bill Porter (Red Pine), Mike O'Connor, Gary Snyder, Stefan Hyner, Gui de Angulo. We will also create writing in response to these poets.

The Rest is Silence
Laura Moriarty
We will investigate the concept (and practice) of "the rest" through our own writing and through the work of Shakespeare, Blake, Stein, Suzuki, Pessoa, Spicer and various contemporary writers. A reader will be available. Practical aspects of publishing (and how it relates to writing practice) will also be discussed.

Stealing the Dictionary
Max Regan
There are over 40,000 dictionaries currently in circulation. In this writing workshop each student will excavate a theme from their own history, from which their unique dictionary will be made. Our writing will trespass into invisibility, memoir, confession, witness, hybrid forms and the false geography of language. Sources will include B.L. Hawkins, H. Mullen, R. Brown, C. Milosz, A. Marlowe and others. Students of any genre are welcome.

Lives of the Poets
Edward Sanders
Participants will come to the course with as much biographic material as possible on a specific poet, or possibly two interconnected poets. Bring information also on the historic milieu of the poet, and prepare to write poems on your chosen poet, as well as to create a condensed prose biography of the poet with some attention given to the history of his/her era.

Who is Sounding? Ritual, Shamanism, Performance
Anne Waldman
What is shakti? Satori? Poetic efficacy? Will a chant or spell or mantra bring down the "Warring God Realm?" We will examine the power of ritualized language, and the old adage that "poetry is the mother of religion." We will work on a poetic opera with our own texts, and with gesture, silence, chorus. And document its progress through techno-wizardry. Recommended texts: Maria Sabina (University of California Press, Ed: Joris & Rothenberg), Technicians of the Sacred (Ed: Rothenberg U of Ca. Press), Ezra Pound's translations of Noh plays.

Week One | Week Two | Week Three | Week Four

Previous Summer Writing Program Information

2006
2005
2004
2003