Voice and Narrative — Poetry Writing Series
Explore your relationship to your voice as you express yourself in apology, anger, love, and more (new topic every week). Practice articulating the many stories you’ve participated in, and begin to envision new ways of experiencing your voice’s sound, power, and resonance… by writing poetry.
Interested in hosting, attending, or booking individual classes in this series?
Email christine@9creativelives.com for details
Week 1: Silence and Listening
“…the first question we might ask any poem is, What kind of voice is breaking silence, and what kind of silence is being broken?” – Adrienne Rich, Arts of the Possible (essay)
From what sort of silence have you learned to speak? What have you learned about your voice through listening and considering your relationship to the world? Explore your experience, and then… write a poem.
Week 2: Apology and Discomfort
“Do we learn kindness / or the mask of kindness?” – LXIV (from The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda).
Perhaps you’re far too familiar with the shape of an apology, or perhaps there are discomforts your voice has been avoiding, and it’s time to honour the wisdom of your regret. Explore your experience and then… write a poem.
Week 3: Anger and Assertiveness
“I want the how it was voice; / the call me irresponsible but aren’t I nice voice; / the such a bastard but I warn them in advance voice.” – Ann Sansom, Voice (poem)
How does it feel to speak firmly, resolutely, even powerfully — protecting, with your voice, either yourself, your values, or those close to you? Explore your experience and then… write a poem.
Week 4: Love and Passion
“I thought of [language] as the means to notice, to contemplate, to praise, and, thus, to come into power.” – Mary Oliver, Upstream
How do you use language to rejoice? To express admiration for what you find beautiful? To lift up yourself and those around you? Explore how you express (or would like to express) your love and then… write a poem.
Week 5: Delight and Playfulness
“Lemon… even if you simply say it, / pooling full in the mouth, a greenish-hued yellow / so fragrant / so forlorn / so very tart…” — Kim Seung-Hee, Lemon-Juice Squeezing Time (poem)
Oh, it can be so much fun to speak: to shape language with your tongue, your teeth; your vowels resounding within the caverns of your body. Explore the many delights of expression, and then… write a poem.
Week 6: Authenticity
“When I wrote something that finally had it, I would say it aloud and it would come alive, become real. It would start repeating itself and I’d know, that’s struck, that’s true. Like a bell something struck true. And there the words would be.” – Audre Lorde (interview)
How do you know when you have ‘found your voice’, and that the sensations and sounds that carry your thoughts and desires is, finally, truly yours? Explore your experience and then… write a poem.