Literary Feelings — Workshop with Jacqueline Waters
5 consecutive sessions: Thursdays, 7-9pm, begins February 8, 2018
Parish Hall, St. Mark’s Church (131 E 10th St, New York, NY 10003)

This workshop will focus on emotion and how it shows up in poetry. We’ll look at the ways a poem can conjure, acknowledge or avoid feeling, and we’ll draw on recent work in affect studies to help us locate the subtle, the overflowing and everything we can find a name for in between. We’ll write in class and experiment with contemplative practices and exercises meant to illuminate the predicament of feelings in poetry. Our goal will be to gather some of this material into drafts for the final week of class. Writers we read might include Sara Ahmed, Lauren Berlant,
Brian Blanchfield, Lucille Clifton, San Juan de la Cruz, Emily Dickinson, Aaron Kunin, Audre Lorde, Filip Marinovich, Bernadette Mayer, Shane McCrae, Bharata Muni, Precious Okoyomon, Ariana Reines, Jack Spicer and William Wordsworth.

Jacqueline Waters is the author of Commodore and One Sleeps the Other Doesn’t, both from Ugly Duckling Presse. Her work has appeared recently in Chicago Review, Dreamboat, Fanzine, Harper’s, Little Star and The American Reader.

prosody, privatization, performance and peace — Workshop with Robert Kocik
10 consecutive sessions: Thursdays, 7-9pm, begins March 15, 2018
Parish Hall, St. Mark’s Church (131 E 10th St, New York, NY 10003)

“The beat of a drum smites me through my chest to the shoulder blades. Every atom of my body is a vibroscope.”
Helen Keller

Prosody is, by definition, perhaps the least isolable of phenomena. It can’t manifest in the abstract, thus the workshop’s live performative socioeconomic contextualization that makes us the matter as we speak. We’ll hold an openness for how the sessions unfold, how the threads come together or fray. Openness itself occasions understanding. The research of Roshi Joan Halifax directly correlates heightened somatosensory attunement (vital to prosody) with greater capacity for empathy. Having been spoken into being, to respond with tone of voice moving us toward a world in which no one’s potential will be wasted by violence.

Readings will draw on: Édouard Glissant, Pauline Oliveros, Beautiful Painted Arrow (Joseph Rael), Nagarjuna, Judith Butler, mudita, 4E cognition, Panini, Max Stirner, Saidiya Hartman, Michael Hudson, Josiah Warren, Fiona Templeton, dzogchen, M. NourbeSe Philip, chöd, Pindar, lawmaking as creative writing, Eleni Stecopoulos, Toni Morrison, naad, Cecilia Vicuña, vibrational medicine, Lucy Parsons, poet-designed built-environments, dharmakaya, Russell Maroon Shoatz, Dr. Nida Chenagtsang, Brigid McLeer, Machig Labdron, adversarial readings of alt-right websites, William J.
Barber, epigenetics, Layli Long Soldier, endosymbiosis, Charles Fourier, cymatics, Silvia Federici, and so on.

Robert Kocik is co-director and librettist for The Commons Choir. In 2008, with choreographer Daria Faïn, he initiated an experiential field of research called The Prosodic Body. Publications include: Over Coming Fitness (Autonomedia, 2000), Rhurbarb (Periplum Editions, 2007), E-V- E-R- Y- O-N- E (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2012), and Supple Science (On Contemporary Practice, 2013). mayday heyday parfait, an investigative musical theater work, premiered at BRIC Arts in 2017. Current architectural work involves the designing of homes for people with multiple chemical sensitivities.

The Poetry Project’s workshops have a reputation for being both rigorous, accessible, and affordable. Teachers, experienced writers, and new writers work together with a shared dedication to creating exciting poetry and exploring a wide range of literary genres, styles, and traditions. Due to a cap of 15 seats per workshop (unless otherwise noted), reservations are required and payment must be received in advance.Tuition for one 10-session workshop is $275 and for one 5-session workshop is $150 for the 2017 season. Tuitionfor one Master Class is $95, or $75 for students and seniors. If you are a student or senior, email lh@poetryproject.org with a scan of your Student ID for a discount code. For more information or to learn about scholarships, visit poetryproject.org/events/category.