Reading Poets, Writing Poems with Anita Skeen – G26100104
Theodore Roethke wrote in his poem, “The Waking,” “I learn by going where I have to go.” As poets, in order to perfect our craft and become more accomplished writers, we need to go to the work of other poets. We need to study how poets we admire address themes and subjects important to us. We need to examine their use of language, metaphor, and structure. We need to ask why they have made the decisions they have about rhythm and music. We will spend our time reading exceptional poems by a variety of poets, commentary they have offered on their own work and the work of other writers, and thus learning where to go with our own poems. Assignments will be given every day and poems discussed in the following class sessions.
Instructor
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Anita SkeenAnita Skeen is currently Professor Emerita in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University where she is the Founding Director of The Center for Poetry. and currently the Series Editor for Wheelbarrow Books. She taught students in kindergarten through high school while working with the Kansas Arts Commission’s Artist in the Schools Program; in traditional venues such as college classrooms as a Visiting Writer and Writer in Residence; and in senior citizens’ centers, libraries, and at Ghost Ranch. She has been the Coordinator of the Creative Arts Program at Ghost Ranch for 41 years, and the Fall Writing Festival for 23 years.
Anita is the author of six volumes of poetry: Each Hand A Map (1986); Portraits (1990); Outside the Fold, Outside the Frame (1999); The Resurrection of the Animals (2002); Never the Whole Story (2011); When We Say Shelter (2007), with Oklahoma poet Jane Taylor; and The Unauthorized Audubon (2014), a collection of poems about imaginary birds accompanied by the linocuts of anthropologist/visual artist Laura B. DeLind.. With Taylor, she co-edited the literary anthology Once Upon A Place: Writings from Ghost Ranch (2008). Her poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.