Poetry Workshop: Kaveh Akbar

A workshop with visiting poet, Kaveh Akbar: "MINING THE POETIC UNCONSCIOUS."

Transcendent American poet Max Ritvo wrote that if the world outside a poet’s head is more interesting than the world inside their head, they might as well become a journalist. His point: it’s what’s inside the poet’s mind, what (or who) is hooting or singing or moaning or gagging inside the poet’s own totally unique psychic ecosystem that allows the poet access to a singular voice. In this workshop we’ll try various methods of popping under our own hoods and exploring our cognitive machinery (using things like meditation and bibliomancy and Rorschach tests), mining our discoveries for poetic language and imagery and more. Leaving the workshop, we’ll have generated drafts, jumping off points for new poems, and hopefully, if all goes well, better relationships with the little voices in our heads.