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a summer practice period
for poets & secret poets
Waves Remind Us of How We Want to Be
June 14-August 9, 2023
Oceans Without End is a creative practice period and writing course for poets, secret poets and fellow writing teachers seeking inspiration and structure during the summer season.
Participants receive readings, writing provocations, poetic activity prompts, and video lectures to support a nourishing and inspiring generative writing practice. We begin with a Live kick-off workshop on June 14 (the replay will be available, in case you can’t be there in real time.)
Oceans can be done at your own pace, from wherever you are in the world.
We’ll set forth with a simple idea: to write a line, fragment, or a draft of a new poem each week day for the duration, leaving weekends for simmering and integration. Later in the course, we’ll compile this new writing into a Water Book, a flexible form loosely modeled on Commonplace Books and inspired by poet Kimiko Hahn’s hybrid text, The Narrow Road to the Interior.
It can feel easy and enjoyable to have a little structure & some guidance during the lazy, hazy days of summer.
This course is taught by author and former creative writing professor, Holly Wren Spaulding, who is also the artistic director of Poetry Forge.
Be sure you are on the Poetry Forge mailing list so that we can notify you when enrollments opens for the next session.
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A slow, sultry approach to writing down the days.
Claim spaciousness & quiet for yourself this summer. With the ocean as a model, metaphor, and inspiration, we will follow our natural instincts as a way to learn what helps us to feel flow.
Writing prompts, creative reading, and other poetic activities will provide engaging and enjoyable structures within which to deepen your personal practice.
A live, interactive workshop takes place on Zoom, Friday, June 3 at 2 pm Eastern Time to kick-off the summer 2022 session. (A replay will be provided but it’s always most powerful to attend in person.)
A Summer Cadence. Course materials will be released over seven weeks, at a pace that supports a consistent practice, while encouraging you to participate on your own terms without ever needing to hurry or be somewhere at a specific time.
Each week’s lesson includes a thoughtful selection of poems, writing provocations, and poetic activities; practical tips on process & craft; and encouragement from Holly. There will be video, audio, and written materials, which you can keep forever.
Course readings from Linda Gregg, Joe Brainerd, George Oppen, Claribel Alegria, James Schuyler, Carl Phillips, Mary Oliver, Alex Dimitrov, Ron Padgett, Naomi Shihab Nye, William Stafford, Suzanne Buffam, Nazim Hikmet, Jim Harrison, Mary Oliver, Wang Wei, & many others.
A Creative Project to Focus Your Attention
In this course, we will learn to write Zuihitsu, a traditional Japanese form that offers the prospect of coherence & shape . . . for our fragments, lists, diaristic entries, & stray notes.
Using what we’ve generated during class, toward the end of summer, we will assemble “A Water Book,” inspired by the long tradition of Commonplace Books, and loosely inspired by Kimiko Hahn's The Narrow Road to the Interior & Sei Shōnagon's The Pillow Book.
Thoughtful editing and curation of your materials will show you just how much can take shape, even in summer, when you have a regular practice of recording the life within and around you. By late July, you will have made something you can feel deeply good about. A marvel.
For some, their Water Book may become the precursor to a longer project or manuscript. And those who do both Oceans Without End and Other Doors will be invited to apply to Holly’s manuscript incubator, A Body of Work, when it returns for Winter 2023.
Oceans Without End is suitable for poets and secret poets. Prose writers, visual artists, therapists, parents, MFA graduates, teachers, and published and unpublished poets have all taken this course and benefitted from it. While the coursework is delivered via the internet, the real work happens away from the screen: when you engage with the suggestions and materials according to your personal interests and desires.
Questions? I am always happy to talk with you about the next steps in your creative writing education. Get in touch.
“I have done many Poetry courses with Holly, and I find them to be both restorative and encouraging. I’m always pleased with what comes out of these commitments to my poetry. It’s like alchemy. My morning writing time is often muddled and short, but in the end I’m surprised by the results of simply committing to it each day. Holly has helped me to believe that I can be a writer while wearing many other hats.”
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Summer Practice Period
June 14-August, 2022
A Summer Syllabus*
June 14: Simplicity, Slowing down, Stray Notes. Kick-off workshop, 2-3 pm EST
June 21: Finding Freedom, Air Currents, Stray Notes
June 28 Splendid Things, The Dawn, Slant Sun, Water Books, and Poetry Picnics.
July 5 Forms of Love; Invitations, Vanishings, Voices, Shining, Wonder
July 12 Water Notes, Electric Instants, Light Rain
July 19 Blue Vaults, Hibiscus Blooms, Natural Idioms
July 26 Fragments for A Water Book
August 2 Things I Didn’t Know I Loved
August 9 Water Book celebration
*Subject to Change
“(Holly’s) poetry choices and prompts take me places I would never think of going on my own.”
For You
All Levels
This course is for you if :
you feel good, maybe even your best, when you give time and space to your creativity
you write more in the context of a class
you trust Holly’s approach—it has worked for you in other settings, such as Poetry as Consolation
you enjoy a good assignment or prompt because you act decisively rather than worrying about where to begin
you genuinely wish to record the fleetingness of your life and consciousness, for yourself, above all, but perhaps there is some value in doing this for others, too
you love being surrounded by great poems and tend to appreciate Holly’s taste (perhaps you follow Poetry Forge on Instagram, where she posts selections every week
Attuned, Integrative, Restorative
We are living through a time of great change. Reading & writing poetry helps us integrate & make sense of our experiences, and cultivate the wherewithal to see possibilities among the ruins and losses. Poetic practices offer grounding & consolation, and restore our body, mind & spirit.
Oceans Without End will support a flexible writing practice attuned to the season. Move through the modules over the assigned period or make them last until fall—whatever suits your mood & schedule.
“I am grateful to you for the way you make this work accessible and joyous.”