Summer Writing Workshop - Poetry with Kevin Cantwell

June 11 - 26, 2020

This class invites adult learners who are both novice writers of poetry and lifetime readers of poetry to learn more about the craft. Less an academic engagement than a creative enrichment course, we will cover such topics as how poems are conceived, how they are written and revised, and how reading other contemporary poets provides the context of how poets use language. Participants will write, read, and discuss their poems. In addition to reviewing such terms as diction, imagery, tone, and the nature of the line, we will also talk about how poems get submitted to literary magazines for potential publication.

Required texts: Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club: An Anthology of Poets Writing in Macon (Edited by Kevin Cantwell) and A Poetry Handbook (Mary Oliver).

Class format: Online with some virtual meetings.

Course cost: $150

Instructor: Kevin Cantwell has taught poetry for over thirty years. He has edited Quarterly West, as well as a series of chapbooks for Georgia poets without a first book. His books of poetry include Something Black in the Green Part of Your Eye and One of Those Russian Novels. He has won several awards, including the Academy of American Poets prize and the James Dickey Poetry Award; his poems have been published in Poetry, The Paris Review, Irish Pages, The New Republic, Shenandoah, as well as many other magazines. His poems have also been featured on Poetry Daily and the Poetry Foundation’s poem of the day function, as well as the Poem of the Week for RTE (Ireland).

Please Note: This is a non-credit continuing education course. The 62 years and older tuition waiver for credit classes in the University System of Georgia does not apply to continuing education courses. These courses require access to an Internet connection and the ability to create, save, and submit Word files; unfortunately, the instructor is unable to provide technical support. The instructor is only able to review writing samples generated within the assignments of the course but not any other types of writing, including book-length manuscripts of any kind, including poetry, fiction, non-fiction.

As a new program in the redesign of Continuing Education at Middle Georgia State University, the Master Lectures and Conversations Series continues to promote public engagement with the great ideas of our times. These lectures, classes, and conversations are brought to the public by MGA and its intellectual partners.

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