A Self-Guided Online Series
You do not need to have taken the previous Living Room Craft Talks to take this series.
If you want to learn more about the strategies that you can employ to write poems that are vivid, arresting, meaningful and complex, I’d be delighted to have you join me in the Living Room Craft Talks: The Fourth Series. If you haven’t attended the previous talks, that’s fine. Each series is independent.
I’ll be presenting practical teachings that you’ll be able to put to use at whatever stage of development you’re at—whether you’re just beginning, somewhere in the great middle, or are an accomplished and published poet. These talks are focused on poetry, but prose writers are welcome. This precise attention to structure and language will enrich your work as well.
The topics for this series are: Sentiment & Sentimentality, Image, Line, Form, Eco-Poetry, and The Ode.
We’ll be reading exemplary poems from a large and diverse group of poets. And there will be guest appearances from: Mark Doty, Paul Tran, Jason Schneiderman, Victoria Chang, Marie Howe, and Ross Gay!
More About the Topics and Schedule
Week One
Sentiment & Sentimentality
Guest Poet: Mark Doty
“Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.”—W. Somerset Maugham
We all want our poems to be emotionally powerful, but how do we express strong feelings without falling into irritating sentimentality? We’ll talk about the courage required to run right up to the edge of sentimentality and the craft required not to spill over into it. As Oscar Wilde said, “A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.” I’ll identify specific ways we can “pay” so that we don’t just talk about an emotion, but invoke it. We’ll discuss poems that demonstrate the complex marriage of thought and feeling. I’ll share strategies to heighten the intimacy of your poems and turn up the heat.
Week Two
The Image
Guest Poet: Paul Tran
“…image, holds the primary, wordless world of the actual, its heaped assemblage of quartzite, feathers, steel trusses, red-seamed baseballs, distant airplanes, and a few loudly complaining cows…”—Jane Hirshfield
The image is the heart of the poem. Ezra Pound defined it as “that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.” That instant is when we take in the physical world and give back our response. It’s also our greatest opportunity to connect, to deliver the sensory experience so vividly that the reader suddenly arrives in a new place. The image is the opposite of explanation. It operates beyond argument, beyond reason. We’ll focus on images in exemplary poems and learn how to make our poems come alive with what Tony Hoagland calls “thingitude.”
Week Three
The Line
Guest Poet: Jason Schneiderman
“I have found the law of my own poems.”—Walt Whitman
The line is one of the primary defining elements of poetry. Each poem is an opportunity to discover what kind of line that particular poem needs: short lines, long lines, variable lengths, lines that end on natural pauses, lines that syncopate. We’ll analyze the relationship of each line to what comes before and after and to the poem as a whole. Delving into these considerations––and more––we’ll explore poems that illustrate the myriad possibilities. You’ll gain an understanding of how to make and break lines in ways that deepen the music and meaning of your poems.
Week Four
Form
Guest Poet: Victoria Chang
“Form is never more than a revelation of content.”—Denise Levertov
Form is the architecture of a poem. It’s the vessel you pour your words into. Every time we write, we’re trying to find the ideal form for that particular poem so that every aspect is working in unison to create the most vivid experience for the reader. We’ll consider a wide variety of forms in free verse and open form poems (and in forms the poet has invented). We’ll look at stanzas, pattern, white space and the shape of the poem on the page. I’ll present practices to help you craft the structure of your poems to support the content.
Week Five
Eco-Poetry
Guest Poet: Marie Howe
“The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is––it’s to imagine what is possible.”—Bell Hooks
We are all aware of the earth in peril. And we are confronted with the question: how do we wrap our arms around the exquisiteness of this living world and also give voice to our grief and despair? We’ll study poems that are in awe of the beauty and intricate workings of the planet, that mourn the magnitude of what has been destroyed, and that offer hope that we can, in the words of Vivee Francis, “set the world turning from one moment/ into the next startlement.” I’ll suggest a variety of practices that you can use so that your poems aren’t recitations of what we already know, but move us into that “next startlement.”
Week Six
The Ode
Guest Poet: Ross Gay
“O tell us, poet, what you do? / – I praise./ But those dark, deadly, devastating ways,/ how do you bear them, suffer them?/ —I praise.”—Rainer Maria Rilke
Praise poems may arise from overflowing joy, but they can also be built from the hard labor of affirming what we treasure––even in the face of suffering and the inevitable transience of life. If the ultimate reason to write poetry is to be changed, then the praise poem is one of the fundamental paths to that transformation. You’ll develop your ability to write poems that celebrate the marvelous, exalt the humble, and reveal beauty and mystery even in the roughest times.
From Past Students
Logistics for the Series
Technical Format for the Series:
The Living Room Craft Talks: The Fourth Series was originally recorded as a Zoom craft talk series. Now, it is available as a self-guided, multimedia series that is available online through a participant-only portal on this website. All access is for 90 days. See below for details.
Your Registration Email:
The email address that you enter into the billing information on the following registration pages will be the email address that is sent your confirmation email. If you wish the series materials to be sent to a different email address than the one you use for billing, please email Jen at jen@ellenbass.com and provide her with the alternative email address.
While signing up for this talk series you will be asked to be added to Ellen’s email list (this is how all of the talk series information is sent). YOU MUST DO THIS IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE THE EMAILED INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO ACCESS THE SERIES. You are able to cancel your subscription to Ellen’s email list at any time, but please keep in mind that if you cancel your subscription before all of the talk series’ emails are sent, you may not know how to access your subscription materials.
Emails About This Series and Your Registration:
Once your registration payment has been processed, you will be sent an automated email from jen@ellenbass.com confirming your spot in the series and giving you important information to access the series materials. If that email does not reach you within 1 hour, please check your spam, junk, promotions, or trash folders as the email could have been misdirected.
All emails about this series are sent automatically from jen@ellenbass.com. To make sure that you receive those emails, which include a confirmation with details on how to access the series materials, please add jen@ellenbass.com to your contact list before you register. Not sure how? Click the button below.
More From Past Students
Registration Options
Please read through the details for each of the registration option so that you are clear about the differences between them.
If you have questions about the Downloadable Edition and whether your device will be able to download the talks, please read the Downloading Tips and FAQs.
Access to the Series
Registration gives you immediate access to this series. After registration, please either go to the My Account link at the top of the website or the link for your purchased series at the bottom of the website to access the series. You will also receive an automatic confirmation email that discusses how to access the series.
Online access is only for 90 days, whether you purchase the Standard Access version or the Downloadable Edition. For the Downloadable Edition, you must download the craft talks and handouts to your device within that 90 day period for you to have access to the craft talks and handouts on your device after your access to the craft talk portions of this website expires in 90 days.
Scholarships
Full and partial scholarships available for individuals with financial need for Standard Access only. If applying for a scholarship, please do NOT register for the series in advance. Fill out the form found at the following link to apply: https://www.ellenbass.com/events/living-room-craft-talk-series/scholarship-application/
Questions and Concerns:
If you have any questions or concerns, please email Jen at jen@ellenbass.com.
Cancellations and Refunds:
If within 72 hours of purchasing the Downloadable Edition you find that you cannot download the craft talks, contact Jen and she can move your registration to the Standard Access option and refund you the difference. No other refunds are offered.