9 Thursdays, 7-9:30 p.m. (this class is not currently scheduled)
$335 members/$365 non-members San Francisco
Testimonials for Julie

NOTE: Julie also teaches our six-month “Fearless Poetry ‘Continuation’ class: Persistent Poets,” class for those who have taken the Fearless Poetry Workshop once (or more than once), and would like to keep going at a more advanced level.

This workshop is intended for people who want to jump start their poetry practice and to keep the engine oiled. You’ll do plenty of writing and reading, and have lively discussions  about both the craft and the process of poetry.  The weekly homework assignments (workshopped the following week) are designed to provide fresh angles of approach that can suprise, even startle, both the writer and his/her readers.  “We all get stuck in ruts,” Julie says, “and the class offers ways of digging ourselves out, whether we use these strategies to simply get started at writing or to revise a particularly challenging poem.”

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Five Mondays, Jan. 23-Feb. 20, 7-9:30 p.m.   Berkeley
$185 members/$215 non-members

Special “Combo” Package: Take this class along with David Rosenthal’s  5-week “Expanding Your Poet’s Tool Kit” class (10 weeks total, for the same price as one 9-week class). Just be sure to register for the “Combo” option, if you want the discount. If you sign up for the classes separately,  the discount doesn’t apply.

“Many beginning students come to a poetry class hoping for quick critiques and suggestions for revision.  There are times when it’s right to want this, but not until you’re nearing the final draft,” says Alison Luterman.

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One Saturday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.  San Francisco
$55 members/$65 non-members

“When U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan decided to take up poetry,” says instructor Julie Bruck, “she began by picking tarot cards at random, writing a poem to each until she’d exhausted the deck. This, she said, was a way for her to discover her themes. By her own account, her process hasn’t changed much, but there’s a thrill that goes into unwrapping her short, highly-compressed poems that is a direct transmission of the play that goes into their making.

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