Free-Writing Your Way into a Poem

This will be a generative workshop for NEPC members based on a technique I’ve been using for 20 years that I learned from my mentor and dear friend, Babara Helfgott Hyett. Many (most?) of my poems begin as free-writes generated during a weekly (now virtual) session with poet-friends.Come with whatever notebook or journal you like to write in, a pen or pencil, and three phrases, sentence fragments, or sentences you’d like to use as prompts. These can come from any source: an encyclopedia entry, a single line of a poem (please use the full line), a Victorian novel you picked up at the library sale and have never read. Pick lines that are open ended and evocative. Some lines I’ve used recently: “Tell yourself, maybe it’s true. Maybe your name was . . .” (Nick Flynn); “I missed the storms that stopped there” (Carl Phillips); “and break forever– (unknown); “Are they born knowing?” (The How and Why Program: Little Questions that Lead to Great Discoveries, copyright 1947). We will take turns providing prompts, writing for an amount of time that will likely surprise you, and reading what we’ve written back to one another.

Wendy Drexler’s third poetry collection, Before There Was Before, was published by Iris Press in 2017. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, J Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, Sugar House, The Atlanta Review, The Mid-American Review, The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, and the Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and WBUR’s Cognoscenti; and in numerous anthologies. She’s been the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club.Members can email info@nepoetryclub.org for the link.
*If you’re not a member, joining is easy!
https://nepoetryclub.org/membership/

As the cold and darkness of winter approaches, many of us will be spending more time in our homes. As our Advisory Member Regie Gibson observed, “NEPC members have a wealth of knowledge about all things related to poetry. Why not tap that wealth and share it?”

We are moving forward with his vision and are offering a space for our members to educate and enrich the intellectual and artistic life of our NEPC community. This new series of events for our membership only is called Poet in the House! It will be an occasional event with our members as teachers and learners. 

We would like you to consider offering a presentation, workshop, interview, or panel discussion on any poetry-related topic. What is your deep interest? What theme, process, form, language, poet, history have you delved into? What is your unique expertise? What do you want to learn more about and share with fellow members?

We encourage presenters to include slides, sound and video elements, writing exercises, etc. to make these sessions engaging and interactive.

If you would like offer a session, please send a brief description of the topic(50-100 words), a bio, and a preferred date and time (plus one backup in case there’s overlap) to president@nepoetryclub.org. 

We will provide the Zoom link and publicize the event and support you in whatever way you need. 

Regie Gibson has generously offered to kick off the series with the first offering on Saturday, November 21, 3 pm. 

23 and the Strangeness of Me: A Chromopoem

In this presentation and writing workshop, Regie Gibson will lead us on an original exploration into the “genetics” of what makes each of us unique or “strange” as poets and poetry lovers (those who have no choice but to observe the absurd in us and listen). Be prepared to write, be challenged, and discover!
(An earlier version of this was presented at the New Hampshire Poetry Festival.)