Matt Rader: Craft and Craftiness
Poetic Form and the Trickster Imagination
Workshop Dates:Saturday/Sunday, February 13 & 14, 2010
Workshop Fees:$150
Workshop #:WS1002-02
Course Times:
Saturday 1:00 - 5:00
Saturday 1:00 - 5:00
Salon: Friday, Feb 12, 7:30 - 9:30
Course Description:How do poets shape what shapes them, form figures and forms out of the formless? How do poets turn the wilderness of our lives into the carpentry of poems and our housing of poems into wilderness? Join poet and teacher Matt Rader in a collaborative exploration of these questions through writing, reading, discussion, exercises (both imaginative and physical) and the careful cultivation of reflective space. Discover for yourself how a poet can leverage the forms and traditions of poetic craft to access the trickster imagination at the heart of all art.
On the evening previous to the workshop, Friday, February 12, Ivan Coyote and the poet Matt Rader will be doing a public reading at a Salon for the Denman Island community. All workshop participants are invited to attend for no extra cost.
Participants should bring 3-6 typed and printed examples of their poetry. These should be poems participants hope to receive feedback on including suggestions for revision. Participants should also bring writing instruments to class and at least one poem from a favourite poet they consider a model for their own poems.
Each day will begin with a period of free written reflection on a particular question followed by a group discussion that will pursue the thoughts, questions, and concerns that arise from this reflection. We’ll take our cues for much of the workshop time from this early discussion and from there we may move into individual or group exercises meant to limber up the mind and body and to experiment with the tools of poetic craft. We will also likely look at examples of published poetry that enact some of the themes of the workshop. At least part of each workshop will include the discussion of particular examples of participants’ writings. In addition, each participant will have at least one meeting with me individually. It is essential to keep in mind that the workshop will be driven by the needs, desires, and interests of the participants and will be wide open to following wherever people want to go.
Matt Rader
Matt Rader grew up in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island and is the author of two critically acclaimed books of poetry, Miraculous Hours, and Living Things.
His poems, stories, and criticism have appeared in journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies around the world.
His writing has been nominated for numerous awards including The Journey Prize, The Gerald Lampert Award, The National Magazine Award and two Pushcart Prizes and he has read and lectured at festivals and universities in Canada, the United States, and Australia.
A former Graduate Teaching Fellow at the University of Oregon where he taught creative writing and argumentative reasoning, Rader currently teaches writing and literature at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.