Poetry Friday -- How Poetry Comes to Me

CityLit Project is taking registrations for my fall poetry workshop. It's through the Write Here, Write Now program.

Poetry Cafe runs eight weeks (first session is Sept. 14). We'll talk about where poems come from, imagery and poems of childhood, list poems, using simile and metaphor, and how to build your own prompt.

Here's a model poem I'll be bringing to our first session, "How Poetry Comes to Me," by Gary Snyder.

How Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the

Boulders at night, it stays

Frightened outside the

Range of my campfire

The rest of the poem and a bio of Snyder are here.

Want more poetry to come to you? Visit Kate at Book Aunt http://bookaunt.blogspot.com/ -- our Poetry Friday host this week.

Want more info on my workshop?

Poetry Café: Small Plates to Tempt Your Writing Palate

Dates: September 14, 21, 28, October 5, 12, 19, 26, November 2, 7-9 PM

Location: Howard County Center for the Arts

Registration: $175

The Poetry Café is dishing out model poems and writing exercises for you to try.

Instructor: Laura Shovan's poetry has appeared in Lips, The Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, Paterson Literary Review, The Little Patuxent Review, and Joyful online.

Registration forms are here:

http://www.citylitproject.org/index.cfm?page=writeherewritenow

Jane Austen says, "Take heart!"

I've been working on my middle grade novel (Archieology) for so many years, I've lost count.

But take heart, if you're sharing my boat.

Here is Jane Austen's "Advertisement by the Authoress to Northanger Abbey."

"This little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended for immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller, it was even advertised, and why the business proceeded no farther, the author has never been able to learn. That any bookseller should think it worth while to purchase what he did not think it worth while to publish seems extraordinary. but with this, neither the author nor the public have any other concern than as some observation is necessary upon those parts of the work which thirteen years have made comparatively obsolete. The public are entreated to b ear in mind that thirteen years have passed since it was finished, many more since it was begun, and that during that period, places, manner, books and opinions have undergone considerable changes."

Thank you, Miss Austen, for making five years feel more palatable.

See you tomorrow for Poetry Friday.