Please note: This workshop is sold out! To join the waitlist, click here.
Truth and Beauty
A Poetry Workshop
with Ellen Bass & Marie Howe
May 20 – 24, 2024
Online via Zoom
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty . . .”
—John Keats
If you want to encounter more truth in your poems, to express it in the most beautiful way possible, to craft poems that reflect the inextricable marriage of truth and beauty, love and death, the luminous and the ordinary, please join us for this special workshop.
We will elude and distract the censors that silence or limit us. We’ll approach our experience from new angles to find the poem within the story. We’ll question the stories we think are true and experience the power of not-knowing and discovery.
We will write poems, share our writing, and hear what our work touches in others. We’ll also read model poems by contemporary poets and discuss aspects of the craft. But mainly this will be a writing retreat—time to explore and create in a supportive community. Though the focus is on poetry, prose writers who want to enrich their language will find it a fertile environment.
In 2024, there are 2 Truth & Beauty workshops: both will be online (this one and one that will be held at the end of July).
We are asking that those who register for either of these workshops sign up for only one Truth and Beauty workshop, not both.
The Structure of the Workshop
Although this workshop is appropriate for beginning poets, with much support and encouragement offered, it is also recommended for experienced poets, including those who have published books or chapbooks, are teaching poetry, or have simply been working at the craft for a long time.
This workshop is oriented toward generating new work. We’ll start each day with a talk about some aspect of the craft of writing.
Then there will be time devoted to writing. Unlike workshops where there are multiple short writing prompts, we prefer to schedule longer writing sessions so that there’s time to go deeply into your writing. You may not be actually writing that entire time, but there’s space for writing, reflection, starting off on a whole new topic, maybe taking a short break to refresh yourself and begin again.
Then we’ll meet to share our work. For these sessions, we’ll divide into smaller groups, one led by each teacher (you’ll have the opportunity to work with both teachers in the small groups). Everyone will have a chance to read and to receive responses, encouragement, and support. Marie and Ellen will also provide guidance and suggestions for those who need or want that.
On the final night, there will be a poetry reading by each of the participants.
Cost: $1900
Workshop Participant Number: Maximum of 28
Workshop Format: This workshop will be held online through Zoom. Handouts for the workshop will be sent by email in advance of the Zoom sessions. The workshop is not recorded, so participants are expected to attend all of the Zoom sessions.
Scholarships for Poets who Identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a Person of Color
We are offering two full scholarships for the workshop to poets who identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a Person of Color. Unfortunately, we can’t offer every deserving applicant a scholarship, but if you’d like to apply, please send two poems in a Word document–applications are judged blind, so please do not include your name in the document, but do let Jen know who you are–or the body of an email to jen@ellenbass.com by April 10, 2024.
If you have already attended an online workshop on scholarship within the last three years (this does not include the Living Room Craft Talks), you are not eligible to apply for this workshop.
Retreat Schedule
Monday, May 20, 2024
Introductory Session: 2 – 4 pm Pacific Time/5 – 7 pm Eastern Time
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Craft Talk: 9 am – 10 am Pacific Time/ 12 – 1 pm Eastern Time
Feedback Session: 2 – 5 pm Pacific Time / 5 – 8 pm Eastern Time
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Craft Talk: 9 am – 10 am Pacific Time/ 12 – 1 pm Eastern Time
Feedback Session: 2 – 5 pm Pacific Time / 5 – 8 pm Eastern Time
Thursday, May 23, 2024
Craft Talk: 9 – 10 am Pacific Time/ 12 – 1 pm Eastern Time
Feedback Session: 2 – 5 pm Pacific Time / 5 – 8 pm Eastern Time
Friday, May 24, 2024 – Please Note the Time Shifts This Day
Craft Talk: 8 – 9 am Pacific Time/ 11 am – 12 pm Eastern Time
Feedback Session: 1 – 4 pm Pacific Time / 4 – 7 pm Eastern Time
Participant Poetry Reading: 5:30 – 6:30 pm Pacific Time / 8:30 – 9:30 pm Eastern Time
This retreat is NOT recorded, so participants should plan to attend all of the sessions.
TO REGISTER
Registration is a 2-part process. Part one is making your payment and part two is filling out a short form. Registration is not complete until both parts are completed, though completing your payment does secure your spot in the workshop.
Payment:
Full payment of the $1900 fee is due with registration. You have the option to pay by credit card or PayPal.
Cancellations and Refunds:
If you find that you cannot attend the workshop, let Jen know as soon as possible and she’ll try to fill your space. If she can fill your space, she’ll refund your payment, minus a $350 administrative fee which is non-refundable. The sooner you let us know, the more likely that we can fill your space.
Questions and Concerns:
If you have any questions or concerns, please email Jen at jen@ellenbass.com.
Please note: This workshop is sold out! To join the waitlist, click here.
MARIE HOWE is a Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets. She was the Poet Laureate of New York State and is the author of four books of poetry, the most recent being Magdalene (Norton). Her previous books include The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (Norton), The Good Thief (which was chosen for the National Poetry Series) and What the Living Do. She has also co-edited In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Agni, Harvard Review and New England Review, among many others. Marie Howe received a Guggenheim and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence and NYU. In the words of Stanley Kunitz: “Marie Howe’s poetry is luminous, intense, and eloquent, rooted in an abundant inner life. Her long, deep-breathing lines address the mysteries of flesh and spirit, in terms accessible only to a woman who is very much of our time and yet still in touch with the sacred.”
ELLEN BASS is a Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent collection, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Her other poetry books include Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Her poems appear frequently in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and many other journals. Among her awards are Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, and The California Arts Council, The Lambda Literary Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. She co-edited the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks!, and her nonfiction books include the groundbreaking The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth. Bass founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, California jails, and teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University.