The Things of the World
William Carlos Williams said, "No ideas but in things." We'll look at poems that turn their attention to the physical world. They may move from there into feelings and thoughts, but at their source is what Tony Hoagland calls "thingitude." Inspired by poems by Williams, Charles Simic, Dorianne Laux, Thomas Lux, Neruda, Natasha Trethewey, B. H. Fairchild, and Juan Ramón Jiménez, we'll write a poem that looks closely at a thing and explores where that leads us. Class includes 2.5-hour writing break.
Note: Due to the high demand and nature of the class content, we're excited to offer this class without a maximum capacity, opening up this class to more students than a typical Hugo House online class offering.
Registration dates:
August 7: Scholarship Donation Day
August 8: Member registration opens at 10:30 am
August 15: General registration opens at 10:30 am
August 21: Last day of Early Bird pricing
Ellen Bass
Poet and educator Ellen Bass is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book of poetry, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Previous books include Like a Beggar, a finalist for The Paterson Poetry Prize, The Publishers Triangle Award, The Milt Kessler Poetry Award, The Lambda Literary Award, and the Northern California Book Award; The Human Line; and Mules of Love, which won The Lambda Literary Award. Bass has also written works of nonfiction, including, with Laura Davis, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, which has sold over a million copies and has been translated into twelve languages. The New Yorker has published ten of Bass’s poems throughout the years, and two have been chosen for The New Yorker podcast. In 2021, Bass was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry. She teaches in the MFA program at Pacific University and lives in Santa Cruz, California.
