Poetrymind: Coming Soon Poetrymind Workshops in Brattleboro,VT

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Coming Soon Poetrymind Workshops in Brattleboro,VT

EIGHT WEEK MEDITATION & POETRY COURSE

Participants will be introduced to basic mindfulness practices that “loosen” the mind from judgements and self-consciousness to access natural poetrymind in the moment. We will focus more on process than finished writing leading to fresh approaches and greater confidence in our authentic voice while still honing our craft. Particpants will be introduced to Allen Ginsberg’s Mind Writing curriculum – the cornerstone of his teaching aesthetic as well as other contemporary methods such as projective verse, investigative poetics, and haiku hybrid forms. This will be a fun and deeply informative course with lots of visiting guests from meditation and yoga teachers to poet friends either in person or via skype. Both beginners and advanced poets and meditators welcome.

WHEN: February-March, 2015 every Sundays 11:00-2:00 PM

COST: $160 for all eight sessions plus optional material fee of $25 for source book. Limited to six-eight people. Location TBA

THURSDAY MORNING WRITING GROUP

We will meet weekly to share favorite poems by others or ourselves, talk shop, and encourage one another on the writer’s journey in a safe and non-competitive environment. We will begin by refining our reading aloud skills and appreciation for the sacred dimension of language as scribe, witness, provocator, and oracular presence for these times. Taking it from there, who knows?

WHEN : Ongoing Thursdays 10-Noon COST: Sliding scale $15 per session or $100 for 10 sessions. LOCATION TBA

LUMINOUS DETAILS WRITING WORKSHOP

(Spring 2015)

We will apply ourselves with ardent attention to the details of the phenomenal world around us engaging in writing assignments and meditation as a basis to celebrate sacred world. Location TBA

COST: $125 (Friday night, Saturday & Sunday) includes a participant reading on Sunday

Writing the Heart’s Desire – Exploring Extended Metaphor as a Means to Discover One’s Own Poetic Voice

Whether broken hearted, grieving, yearning for the impossible, lovelorn, seeking reconciliation, recognition, locating ourselves in place or any of the myriad human circumstances, we will use our heart’s desire to access the stream of metaphors that hold our energy the most and release them into language reflecting our deepest meanings. This is not a therapy practice but rather an exploration of how to get real with our work. We will examine stellar examples of works reflecting extended metaphors originating in the heart’s desire from Emily Dickinson, Wordsworth, Shelly, Walt Whitman. Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Mark Doty, Anne Waldman, Charles Olson, and Gary Snyder among others.

Stay tuned for more more events and locations......

FACILITATOR:

Jacqueline Gens MFA and MAT has worked with poets for over 30 years from Naropa’s famed Jack Kerouac School to the New England College MFA Program in Poery she co-founded with Chard DeNiord in 2001. For many years, she worked for the late poet Allen Ginsberg with whom she informally studied. She is a long time practitioner of Buddhism. Recently retired, she founded the Khandroling Paper Cooperative which specializes in making handmade paper from recycled sacred texts and substances. She lives in Brattleboro, VT.

For further information email Jacqueline at jacqueline.gens@gmail.com

*Calligraphy by Barbara Bash

WHAT IS POETRYMIND?

Officially Poetrymind’s a Decade Old

In the Spring of 2005 while co-directing the New England College MFA Program in Poetry, I considered starting my own blog. I had been introduced to blogging through an MAT program in Information Technology I was enrolled in at Marlboro College.

I still remember sitting bolt upright one night when the word poetrymind manifested as the title. I believe I first heard this word from Russell Edson--at NEC when he read. At one point he responded to a challenge from a faculty saying something like there is only one thing that matters and that is poetrymind. Edson was a magical and deeply ironic prose poet whose work I admire. His work epitomizes for me the simple notion that things are not what they seem. Thus, the phenomenal world is infused with magic and the mystery of discovery with ever fresh eyes.

For me poetrymind is synonymous with “First Thought, Best Thought,” which is to say, thought that represents a state of mind free from conceptual overlays of judgment and second guessing. Rather it is elegant thought borne from pure perception, the original thought before attaching judgement. The slogan, "First Thought, Best Thought", coined by the late Chogyam Trungpa and Allen Ginsberg at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is not about writing without revision, as some believe. It is about experience first hand--direct and pure without a lot of egotistic filters or projections.

I am reminded of what the great Zen master, Susuki Roshi called “Beginner’s Mind” --- every moment offers a “fresh” experience. The ground is open vast mind or as Pema Chodron aptly puts it—The sky is open mind and everything else is the weather. Words are the display of poetrymind –alive with potentiality. Words in this context can become a vehicle for discovery of who we are.

See No Blood for Hubris on Russell Edson