How to Grapple with Trauma in Poems with Eve Grubin (via Zoom)

How do poets write about the trauma? Why and how do they employ such strategies as fragmentation, dissociation, reticence and repetition to address a subject that is not bearable? Can this be a healing process for the poet? For the reader of the poem? This short course will include both readings and a discussion of poems by poets such as Emily Dickinson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Paul Celan, Lucille Clifton and others. Participants will be given prompts and will write in response to the discussion and to the poems we are reading. (Safeguarding: Given the focus of this course, aspects of the session may include sensitive topics. Please look after yourself in this environment and know that if you need to take a break at any time or interact in another way – such as by being off-camera or communicating via the written chat, rather than verbally – that will be totally fine. The focus of this session will be on the writerly aspects of participants’ work, with discussions being focused on craft, language, form, and poetic technique, rather than poems’ contents or disclosures of participants’ personal experiences).

NB: This class will be taught on Zoom and will be capped at 12 students. Registrants will receive the Zoom link to the email address they use to register. It will arrive immediately after registration so please check your spam folder if you do not receive it. It will also be sent the day before class as a reminder. Please review the course policies page before registering for any classes. Please email ask @writerscenter.org with any questions.

Eve Grubin is the author of Morning Prayer (Sheep Meadow Press), The House of Our First Loving (Rack Press) and Grief Dialogue (Rack Press). Her next book of poems Boat of Letters will be published by Four Way Books.