| |  | | Cave Canem offers workshops in New York City, New Jersey, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Regional workshops allow writers who may not be able to attend the annual retreat a chance to work with accomplished African American poets and teachers.
NEW YORK CITY WORKSHOP SERIES Given in the spring and fall each year, these workshops offer the rigorous instruction, careful critique and supportive environment that characterize our summer workshop/retreat in a different format. Workshops meet once a week for ten weeks, followed by a participant reading. Designed for emerging African American writers, the workshops are free and open to New York City residents not enrolled full-time in degree-granting programs. Course size is limited to 12 - 15 poets to assure the sense of safety and community that is Cave Canem's hallmark. We ask for a commitment by participants to attend eight of the ten workshops in order to maintain the group's focus and momentum. Participants are expected to bring new poems to each session for discussion and constructive critique. Started in spring 1999 through a grant from the Jerome Foundation, other funders for the New York Workshop series have included Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts.
New York City Workshop -- Fall 2005:
Mythic Invention
Led by Jeffery Renard Allen Thursdays, September 29th – December 15th, 2005
Poets House, 72 Spring Street,
New York, New York |
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Myth is one avenue of possibility in the development of a poet's vision and voice. This class will examine possible uses of mythology that any poet can explore. How can myth give you a fresh view of the world and the page? What insights may it offer? How can it be a mode of improvisation and experimentation? And what does it mean to mythologize personal experience or to invent a personal mythology? How do the elements of music, image and structure function in the use and construction of myth in verse? We will examine these important questions. Although the focus will be on workshopping new poems, a significant portion of each class time will be spent on discussing published poems which employ myth in one way or another.
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Jeffery Renard Allen holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has published two books, Harbors and Spirits (Moyer Bell), a collection of poems, and the novel Rails Under My Back (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000) which won The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for Fiction. His other awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, The Chicago Public Library’s Twenty-first Century Award, and Recognition for Pioneering Achievements in Fiction from the African American Literature and Culture Association. A forthcoming collection of poems, Stellar Space, will be published by Moyer Bell in 2006.
The Fall 2005 New York City Workshop is supported by The Jerome Foundation in celebration of the Jerome Hill Centennial, and in recognition of the valuable cultural contributions of artists to society.
Application Process
The New York City Workshop is free and open to African American poets from the New York City Metropolitan area who are not enrolled full-time in a degree-granting program. Submit two (2) copies of four to six (4-6) poems, with a cover letter stating why you want to attend and what you hope to gain from the workshop. Please be sure to include your street address, telephone number, email address, and a statement of commitment to attending at least nine of the eleven sessions.
Schedule
The class of 12 to 15 poets will meet on Thursday nights, 7:00 to 9:00 pm, from
September 29th through December 15th 2005. The workshops are held at Poets House, 72 Spring Street in Manhattan.
Registration deadline: POSTMARKED BY SEPTEMBER 10, 2005 Cave Canem New York City Workshop
Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.
584 Broadway, Suite 508
New York, NY 10012
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NEW JERSEY REGIONAL WORKSHOP SERIES
Cave Canem began programming in New Jersey in the fall of 2003 with a workshop series led by Willie Perdomo. Yusef Komunyakaa and Cheryl Clarke have also facilitated sessions. Designed for emerging African American writers, the workshops are free and open to African American poets from New Jersey who are not enrolled full-time in degree-granting programs. Course size is limited to 12 - 15 poets to assure the sense of safety and community that is Cave Canem's hallmark. Participants are expected to bring new poems to each session for discussion and constructive critique. The workshops have been made possible through the generous support of The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
New Jersey Workshop I -- Fall 2005:
Chasing the Breakthrough
Led by Tracy K. Smith Tuesdays, September 27 – November 15, 2005
Rutgers-Newark Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Martin Luther King Boulevard, Newark, New Jersey |
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Writing poetry is not merely a matter of creating pleasing or impressive objects, but of finding new and necessary manners of seeing and existing within the world. In this eight-week workshop, writers will coax, court and attempt to corner breakthroughs of all orders. Part of each session will be devoted to close readings and discussion of published poems, with particular attention to where and how a poet's formal or thematic choices lend themselves to resonant discovery. In-class and take-home exercises will push participants to attempt new approaches--and take new risks--with their own work. Part of each class will also be devoted to the workshopping of new poems.
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Tracy K. Smith was raised in Northern California and holds degrees in English and Creative Writing from Harvard College and Columbia University. Her book, The Body's Question, was awarded the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and published by Graywolf Press. She is the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a 2004 Rona Jaffe Writers Award, a fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. Her poems have appeared in Boulevard, Callaloo, Columbia, Gulf Coast, and anthologies Poetry 30, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and will serve as Lecturer in Creative Writing at Princeton from September 2005-July 2006.
Application Process
The New Jersey Poetry Workshop is free, and open to African American poets from the Central - Southern New Jersey area. This is the fourth in a series of workshops funded by The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Submit two (2) copies of four to six (4-6) poems, with a cover letter stating why you want to attend and what you hope to gain from the workshop. Applications must include a street address, telephone number, email address, and a statement of commitment to attend at least six of the eight sessions.
Schedule
The class of 12 to 15 poets will meet on Tuesday nights, 7:00 to 9:00 pm, from September 27th - November 15th, 2005. The workshops are held at the Rugters-Newark Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark, New Jersey.
Registration deadline: POSTMARKED BY SEPTEMBER 15, 2005.
Cave Canem New Jersey Workshop II: Unveiling the Subject
Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.
584 Broadway, Suite 508
New York, NY 10012
New Jersey Workshop II -- Fall 2005:
Unveiling the Subject
Led by Phebus Etienne
Tuesdays, October 18 - November 8, 2005
Essex County College, 303 University Avenue, Newark, New Jersey |
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This course is designed to encourage writing, editing and revision of poetry and to explore/discover our chosen subjects and /or obsessions. We will use distinct, descriptive language to create our art and investigate our voices. Class time will be devoted mostly to the discussion and workshop of original student works. Poems by established and emerging poets will be examined. Suggestions for experimentation with various forms and writing exercises will be provided for students in order to promote development of individual style.
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Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Phebus Etienne grew up in East Orange, New Jersey. She earned degrees from Rider University and the Creative Writing program at New York University. Her poems have appeared in The Butterfly's Way: Voices From The Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, The Best of Callaloo: Poetry, Calabash, and Paterson Literary Review. A Cave Canem graduate, she received a 2001 poetry fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Whiting Foundation.
Application Process
The New Jersey Poetry Workshop is free, open to African American poets from the Central - Southern New Jersey area, and geared toward poets whose skills are beyond the beginner's stage but not yet at an accomplished level. This is the fourth in a series of workshops funded by The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Submit two (2) copies of four to six (4-6) poems, with a cover letter stating why you want to attend and what you hope to gain from the workshop. Applications must include a street address, telephone number, email address, and a statement of commitment to attend at least six of the eight sessions.
Schedule
The class of 12 to 15 poets will meet on Tuesday nights, 7:00 to 9:00 pm, from October 18th - November 15th, 2005. The workshops are held at Essex County College, 303 University Avenue, in Newark, New Jersey.
Registration deadline: POSTMARKED BY SEPTEMBER 23, 2005.
Cave Canem New Jersey Workshop II: Unveiling the Subject
Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.
584 Broadway, Suite 508
New York, NY 10012
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MINNESOTA REGIONAL WORKSHOPS AND MASTER CLASSES Cave Canem began programming in Minnesota in the fall of 2000 with a five-week workshop series. Cave Canem co-founder Toi Derricotte initiated the Master Class format in spring 2001. The workshop series and master classes will be given in alternate seasons. It is made possible through the generous support of The Jerome Foundation. We are also indebted to The Loft Literary Center for its collaboration and hospitality for Cave Canem’s programs in the Twin Cities.
Minnesota Master Class -- Spring 2005:
Poetry and the Muse with Natasha Trethewey 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Saturday April 23, 2005
The Loft Literary Center,
1011 Washington Avenue S.
Minneapolis, Minnesota |
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This workshop is concerned with an awareness of history of past events and their lingering effects on the present, and a knowledge of the literature of the past and its influence. It will focus on the writing of poems which seek to engage and document local histories “those histories both public and private” that allow us to place the explorations of our own experiences within a historical context. We will discuss the ways in which poets have used history in their work, define strategies for using information gathered from our research, and begin writing new poems that engage those histories to which we have some connection.
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Natasha Trethewey is author of Bellocq’s Ophelia (Graywolf, 2002) and Domestic Work (Graywolf, 2000), which won the 1999 Cave Canem Prize. Her third collection, Native Guard, is forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Her poems have appeared in such journals and anthologies as American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, New England Review, Gettysburg Review, and The Best American Poetry 2000 and 2003. Currently, she is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University. During the 2005-2006 academic year, she will hold the Lehman-Brady Joint Chair Professorship of Documentary and American Studies at Duke and UNC Chapel Hill.
Application Process
The Master Class is free of charge and open to African American poets living in the Twin Cities area, who are not enrolled full-time in a degree-granting program. Successful candidates will be emerging writers who are committed to challenging themselves in an intensive writing experience.
Applicants should send two (2) copies of four to six (4 - 6) poems with a cover letter explaining why you would like to attend the MasterClass and what you hope to gain from it. Please include your telephone number, mailing address and email address with your submission.
Registration postmark deadline: REGISTRATION CLOSED, Notification by April 1, 2005.
Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.
ATTN: Minnesota Master Class
584 Broadway, Suite 508
New York, NY 10012
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