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Now celebrating its 15th year at The Writing Salon, this workshop draws people who want to jumpstart their poetry practice and to keep the engine oiled. You’ll do plenty of writing and reading, and we’ll have lively discussions about both the craft and the process(es) of poetry.
Each weekly homework assignment provides fresh angles of approach designed to surprise, even startle, both the writers and their readers. “We all get stuck in familiar ruts,” says instructor Julie Bruck, “and this class offers ways of digging ourselves out, whether we use these strategies to start a new poem or to revise a particularly challenging one. With fresh poems on the table each week, an early question is often, how does this poem move? Our group task is to offer constructive help in locating and enhancing that movement. Poets are always learning how to read their own drafts (and those of others), much as we keep learning how to read the world.”
The class is suitable for a wide spectrum of people. “We’ve had students with an interest in poetry but no experience writing it, and others with MFA’s from Iowa, and it’s always been a good mix," says Julie. “The aim of the class is to get everybody excited about new work, to take away strategies that can help with current and future writing—and to have a great time while we’re at it.”
Julie Bruck’s four collections of poems are How To Avoid Huge Ships (2018), Monkey Ranch (2012), The End of Travel (1999), and The Woman Downstairs (1993). Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Plume, The Walrus, The New Quarterly, The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, and The New Yorker. Her awards include two Gold Canadian National Magazine Awards, and the 2012 Governor General’s Award for Poetry (Canada’s equivalent of a National Book Award). She has taught at Canadian universities, and was a resident faculty member at The Robert Frost Place and a guest writer at Vanderbilt University. She has an MFA from Warren Wilson College, and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, The Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Canada Council for the Arts, among others. A former Montrealer, Julie has lived in San Francisco since 1997.
- Thursday, November 07, 7:00pm-9:30pm
- Thursday, November 14, 7:00pm-9:30pm
- Thursday, November 21, 7:00pm-9:30pm
- Thursday, December 05, 7:00pm-9:30pm
- Thursday, December 12, 7:00pm-9:30pm
I recently finished Julie Bruck’s workshop, and just wanted to drop you a note to say what I know many others have said before me: that she’s fantastic! She’s able to give meaningful feedback to poets of every aesthetic and all backgrounds (post-MFA to first poetry workshop) and she’s upbeat, focused, kind, and encourages a lot of fun. I’ve taken many workshops, and I work as a creative writing teacher for high school students, and I was impressed every week by Julie’s unflagging energy and committed thoughtfulness. She’s a gem! I know why she has return students who have worked with her for years!
After writing poetry for years in college and then letting the craft go dormant for a few years, Julie’s class reawakened the poet in me like never before. Julie is passionate, insightful, and practical, and relates to students like friends. I was really able to internalize what I learned in this class and get to a much deeper level with my work and my voice as a poet. This class has been a very significant event in my writing career.