Take a Class

Reading + writing every day. Going out + about every month. Gathering with other creatives every season. And finally, taking a class twice a year.

This is a doable plan, right? Of course, your milage may vary, but this has been a life-giving plan for me.

ModPo is the class that started it all way back in 2013 when Joseph was but 9 months old. This was the first time that I had turned my attention to the making of poems. This is when I discovered the poetry of Lorine Niedecker and Bernadette Mayer! I dipped in and out this fall–such a community of learners have gathered around these poems.

Last Spring I took Intro to Poetry with Sally Thomas. Such richness! She is a working poet, and she approaches poems as such. She’s looking to understand how the poems do their work on you. This class convinced me to give up children’s poems and concentrate our memory work on Yeats, Donne, and Hughes. We are working on “The Road Not Taken” right now. And have Auden waiting for us after the turn of the year.

I also found this Yale class that I may listen in on…how are you deepening your practice through continued learning?

To see all the posts in the series Listening to My Life :: Homeschooling an MFA in Poetry, click here.