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Poetry Writing: Strategies for Finding Voice Through Life Experience with Ron Welburn
May 21, 2022 @ 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Join Straw Dog Writers Guild in person on Saturday, May 21, 2022 from 10:30am – 12:00pm for a craft workshop: Poetry Writing: Strategies for Finding Voice Through Life Experience with Ron Welburn. This is the long-awaited rescheduled event from last year. And it’s being held by our co-sponsor the Northampton Center for the Arts.
No matter how much poetry we have written, we all experience snags and dry spells. I would like to share some strategies for writing which include listening, perceiving what’s around us, understanding situational ironies, socio-political issues, and cosmic laughter. I encourage each participant to have ready one poem by a favored poet that raises difficulty of comprehension, and a draft of one personal poem you like but don’t know how to finish.
This in-person event is free and open to the public. To register, please email strawdogreg@gmail.com. Masks may be required.
Click HERE for links to the poems Ron will be addressing. While registration is not required, if you let us know you’ll be attending, we will send you the downloaded poems.
Bio: Calling Berwyn, PA. his hometown although raised in West Philadelphia, Ron Welburn began seriously writing poetry while majoring in psychology and English at Lincoln University where he twice won the Silvera Poetry Prize. He also earned degrees from Arizona (M.A.) and NYU (Ph.D), taught at Syracuse, SUNY Albany, and WestConn before retiring from UMass Amherst in 2018 after 27 years and where he served as co-founder and director of Native Studies. Ron held three Poet-in-Residencies under the NYS Council on the Arts. His seven poetry books are: Peripheries; Brownup; The Look in the Night Sky; Heartland; Council Decisions; Coming Through Smoke and the Dreaming; and Council Decisions: Revised & Expanded. His love of jazz and life as an Urban Indian (a “Saltwater Cherokee” whose roots run deep in the Delmarva and Chesapeake Basin) characterizes much of his poetry. To read more about Ron, go to: www.umass.edu/english/member/ron-welburn
