***UPDATE***
This workshop has been cancelled due to lack of enrollment. We apologize for any inconvenience
What: “Things About to Disappear”: Writing the Poetry of Popular Culture – Poetry Workshop, led by Gwen Hart
Where: Online via Zoom
When: Saturday, January 28, 2023, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. CST
Cost for Workshop: $45 for MWC Members, $55 for non-MWC Members. Scholarships available for students, veterans, and those with financial need – contact MWC for more information
Contact: Ryan Collins: ryan.collins@mwcqc.org | 309-732-7330
Workshop Description:
“Things About to Disappear”: Writing the Poetry of Popular Culture
Charles Baxter charged writers with chronicling “things about to disappear.” Whether you grew up with Cabbage Patch Kids or Pokemon, pay phones or flip phones, popular culture defines generations and provides touchstones for key moments in our lives. In this generative workshop, we will read a variety of poems featuring pop culture icons from the Kool-Aid Man to The Hulk to Colonel Sanders from poets such as Marcus Jackson, Barbara Hamby, Jon Tribble, Katie Manning, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil. We will use these poems as jumping-off points for our own new work. Students will leave the class with at least three drafts that they can continue to refine on their own. Materials distributed for the course will include a list of suggested places to submit finished pop culture poems.
Instructor Bio:
Gwen Hart is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Montana State University–Northern. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Hollins University and an MFA from Minnesota State University Mankato. She is the author of two chapbooks and two full-length poetry collections. Her second book, The Empress of Kisses, won the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize from Texas Review Press. Her third poetry collection, Never Be the Same, is forthcoming in Spring 2023 from FutureCycle Press in Athens, Georgia. Her poems and short stories have appeared in over thirty literary journals, most recently Chautauqua, Whitefish Review, and Storm Cellar. She is a regular presenter at the Popular Culture Association Conference.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GwendolynAHart
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Gwen-Hart/e/B001K7OXN2%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
This workshop is made possible thanks to the support of Illinois Humanities and the Illinois Arts Council Agency