Overview

Transcending the “love poem,” “ode,” or the “elegy,” how can Eros and Duende slice open and heat up our poems beyond their topics?

In this 8-week generative workshop, we will move beyond psychoanalytic definitions of eros and thanatos to creatively consider and expand our understanding of death and desire as generative forces and influences on the craft of poetry! Absence, silence, the body, boundaries, reality, dream, and possibility are topics we might explore. Using excerpts from such texts as Martin Buber’s “I and Thou,” Audre Lorde’s “Uses of The Erotic,” Anne Carson’s “Eros the Bittersweet,” Lorca’s “Play and Theory of Duende,” Gregory Orr’s “The Four Temperaments,” Alicia Ostriker’s “Meditation on Metaphor,” Jorie Graham’s “Notes on Silence,” Kevin Young’s “Deadism,” and other excerpts from Mary Ruefle, Roland Barthes, and Byung-Chul Han. We will begin each class with a brief reading of an inspiring poem in the context of these lens essays on the life and death force in poetry. Poems will be by representative authors such as Lucille Clifton, Ada Limon, Jean Valentine, Aracelis Girmay, Linda Gregg, and Frank Bidart.

We will alternate weeks workshopping each other’s poems in response to optional prompts on eros and the duende. You will come away from this 8-week course with four newly workshopped poems with written and oral feedback from your instructor and peers and a deeper understanding of the erotic and the duende in poetry. No time like this spring to harness the forces of love and life, death and mystery!

Enrollment is limited to 12 students.

Class meets online on Wednesdays: May 7, 14, 21, 28, June 11, 18, 25, July 2 from 6:30-9 pm.

Students are chosen by Elizabeth Metzger on the basis of a manuscript submission. Please submit a sample of five poems you consider to be your strongest work. Applications must be received by Friday, April 11 at 5 pm. View the submission guidelines and submit an application for this class.

Scholarship assistance is available. Applications must be returned to Scholarship Services at least two weeks before the first session.