Birds Memorize Their Parent’s Songs in Sleep: A Generative Poetry Workshop

In this workshop we will generate new work by tackling fresh subjects. We’ll first inspect
the craft elements of several poems and discuss how each is made: how does the poet
handle the subject? How do the form, images, sound and diction support it? What can
we learn and attempt? What can we consciously imitate? Next, we’ll generate new work
through in-class exercises. Remember that a poem can start practically anywhere: from
something overheard, a menu, a splinter of bitterness, a bizarre or haunting historical
fact, a weird or archaic word, that fact that one teaspoon of a neutron star weighs three
tons―you get the idea. Please bring your writing tools.

Amy Beeder is the author of three books of poetry: Burn the Field, Now Make an Altar
(CMU), and most recently And So Wax Was Made & Also Honey (Tupelo Press),
described by Dana Levin as “a verbal treasure house wizarding through time.” Her
poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, AGNI, The Southern Review,
The Nation, Kenyon Review, Guesthouse, and many other journals. The recipient of an
NEA Fellowship in Poetry, a Merrill Fellowship and a Discovery/The Nation Award, she
teaches poetry in Albuquerque.

This program is supported by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry