Maggie Smith will be a featured poet at the 2020 Palm Beach Poetry Festival, alongside Joy Harjo, Ilya Kaminksky, Nickole Brown, Adrian Matejka, Dana Levin, Patricia Smith, Major Jackson, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Reginald Gibbons, Jessica Jacobs and Angela Narciso Torres.
Making It & Breaking It: Line, Syntax & Stanza With Maggie Smith
In this generative workshop we’ll consider the craft decisions we make in free-verse poems: How are the elements of the poem working on their own? How do they work with—or against—each other? How might form enact—or reveal—content? We’ll discuss a wide variety of contemporary model poems, paying special attention to how line, syntax, and stanza can communicate meaning, and we will use those model poems as prompts for poems to be written before the next day’s workshop session. As we discuss participants’ poems over the course of the week, we’ll build creative momentum and develop new strategies to carry participants forward in their writing practice. Participants may bring one free-verse poem to workshop during the week, but are not required to do so.