Reimagining the Prose Poem
A Generative Workshop
With Chen Chen
In this generative workshop, we’ll discuss and experiment with a variety of daring approaches that writers today are taking toward the prose poem. These approaches allow each writer to get closer to truths at once difficult and strange. As Chloe Honum says, “Sometimes writing about a new subject matter requires a new form.”
While the prose poem is not a new form, how one uses it, inhabits it, can be utterly fresh, surprising, and revelatory. Among other examples, we’ll consider Victoria Chang’s ekphrastic work from With My Back to the World, Rick Barot’s pandemic sequence from Moving the Bones, and Chloe Honum’s psychological narratives from In the Lantern Room. Participants can expect to generate at least three new drafts. Writers in all genres are welcome.
This session will be recorded; the recording will be available to participants until December 26, 2025. Participants will be part of a Zoom Meeting with Chen Chen which means everyone will have the option to turn cameras on (although that is not required to participate). By joining the class, participants consent to being recorded (only if they opt to turn their camera on). As noted above, the recording will be available to class participants only for a limited time; the recording will not be shared for any other purpose.
While this class is designed as a participatory workshop, it can be purchased to be viewed asynchronously (not live) for a similar experience.
DETAILS
Reimagining the Prose Poem
A Generative Workshop
(A Zoom class to attend in person or watch later)
Dates
Sunday, October 26th
Time
1:00-2:30 PM EST
Cost
$90 USD
“Chen Chen is a poet of Whitman’s multitudes and of Langston Hughes’ blues, of Dickinson’s ‘so cold no fire can warm me’ and of Michael Palmer’s comic interrogation. What unifies the brilliance is a voice desperate to believe that within every one of life’s sadnesses there is also hope, meaning, and—if we are willing to laugh at ourselves—humor. Chen is a poet I’ll be reading for the rest of my life.”
—
Jericho Brown
Chen Chen
Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. His work appears in many publications, including Poetry and three editions of The Best American Poetry. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. He was the 2018-2022 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University and currently teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College and Stonecoast. He lives with his partner, Jeff Gilbert, and their pug, Mr. Rupert Giles.