Diving Deep: Poetic Craft, Form and Emotion w/ Gail Thomas

Diving Deep: Poetic Craft, Form and Emotion
A challenge that many writers face is how to choose artful details when writing about strong emotional content. Some of us may shy away from expressing loss or anger, or we may produce work that’s overly sentimental. For inspiration, we will read poems that elevate personal experience by paying close attention to craft. We’ll also engage in an exercise to discover fresh metaphors and experiment with form. Open to poets and prose writers, this workshop will illustrate how to use poetic craft as a means of diving more deeply.

BIO: Gail Thomas
Gail Thomas has published four books of poetry, Odd Mercy (2016), Waving Back (2015), No Simple Wilderness: An Elegy for Swift River Valley (2001) and Finding the Bear (1997).

Odd Mercy was chosen by Ellen Bass for the Charlotte Mew Prize of Headmistress Press, and its “Little Mommy Sonnets” won Honorable Mention for the Tom Howard/ Margaret Prize for Traditional Verse. Also, Waving Back was named a Must Read for 2016 by the Massachusetts Center for the Book and Honorable Mention in the New England Book Festival.

Thomas’s work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including The Beloit Poetry Journal, Calyx, The North American Review, Hanging Loose, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Individual poems have won the Naugatuck Review’s Narrative Poetry Prize and the Pat Schneider Poetry Prize. She was awarded residencies at The McDowell Colony and Ucross.

Her book, No Simple Wilderness, about the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir in the 1930’s has been taught in college courses. As one of the original teaching artists for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Elder Arts Initiative, Thomas led workshops and collaborated with dancers, musicians and storytellers in schools, nursing homes, hospitals and libraries across the state.

Thomas teaches, speaks at conferences and poetry festivals, and reads her work widely in community and academic settings. www.gailthomaspoet.com