ON-LINE - Poetry as Memoir (How to Write a Memoir in Verse)

ON-LINE ONE-DAY WORKSHOP - The day before the workshop starts, the Instructor will provide the students the meeting link

Robert Penn Warren said, “For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.” This class will explore ways to express our lifetime memories in poems, which often, in turn, reveal us to ourselves. Below is a fine example from Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir-in-verse, Brown Girl Dreaming:

 Excerpt from “February 12, 1963”

 I am born not long from the time

or far from the place

where

my great, great grandparents

worked the deep rich land

unfree

dawn till dusk

unpaid

drank cool water from scooped out gourds

looked up and followed

the sky’s mirrored constellation

to freedom.

A basic understanding of poetry writing is required.