April 10, 24, May 8, 22, June 5, 19 10 a.m. to Noon Pre-Class Video Link available March 27 Tuition: Full Class $150 Auditors $75
How to Love the World — a poetry class with Emily Ransdell
Time to shake off winter’s dark days with poetry!
In this six-session online class we will take our inspiration from the poetry anthology How To Love the World, edited by James Crews. It is a beautifully curated collection that reminds us how to find gratitude and hope in ordinary moments of living.
Each session will include a close read and discussion of several poems from the anthology, which includes Naomi Shihab Nye, Danusha Laméris, Lucille Clifton, William Stafford, Ross Gay and others. We will use those works as examples to consider ways we might approach our own poems, which we will share and discuss as well.
This class is limited to eight students plus “auditors,” who will be considered full participants in the discussion but will not bring their own poems for critique. If you are curious about poetry classes, but are not quite ready to share your own writing, this option is a no-pressure way to explore poetry and learn more about the craft.
Four participants will share their work each session, and we will alternate so each person is workshopped three times. Participants will receive written feedback from Emily. Written feedback between participants is encouraged but not required.
To get the most out of our limited time together, Emily will record a pre-class lesson with your first writing assignment and other logistics
About the Instructor
Emily Ransdell published her debut collection, One Finch Singing, in June 2023. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Poet Lore, Tar River Poetry, Terrain, River Styx, CALYX, American Life in Poetry, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize and the New Millennium Writing Award. She divides her time between Camas, Washington and Manzanita, Oregon, where she has taught poetry classes at the Hoffman Center for the Arts. In addition to teaching, Emily is an active volunteer in the Hoffman Center’s writing program.
