Lineation is the main design, the central idiosyncratic feature of poetry. This class stems from connections to other precincts of lineation, primarily geology: the linear structural features within rocks, called intersection, crenulation, mineral, and stretching. The re-navigation of the poetic line into the metamorphic lineation of geology is a re- orientation. Our writing exercises will emanate from this interdisciplinary crossroad, employing such inventions as junction, stress, re-direction, and parallelism.

T S Eliot wrote, “To use very strict form is a help, because you concentrate on the technical difficulties of mastering the form, and allow the content of the poem a more unconscious and freer release.” A poetic form is a little recipe, an algorithm in the history of verse. There is nothing poetic about form itself. How does one enable the content—the poetry—to flow within the strictures of a sonnet, or a sestina, or a villanelle? How does poetry result from rules and confinement? We will discuss forms and write our own poems within and outside them.

For the first time, we are offering a week-long workshop for writers in high school to create and explore poetry in one of the largest poetry libraries in the country.

Please come celebrate the life of D. H. Melhem—poet, author, scholar, political activist, teacher, a.k.a. “The Poet Laureate of New York’s Upper West Side.”

PRESENTERS:

Dorothy Friedman August
Vinie Burrows
Hannelore Hahn
Rashidah Ismaili
Donald Lev
Karen Malpede
Robert Roth
Susan Sherman
Quincy Troupe
Victor Wallis
Steve Zeitlin

3-5pm; Reception to Follow