The 92 Y Unterberg Seminars
Molly Peacock’s Studio Seminars at the 92 St Y are not ordinary poetry workshops. They are exercises in noticing, designed for experienced poets and for those who come to poetry with fresh curiosity. Everyone is welcome. She often works with museums, either in New York or Toronto, bringing an exhibit to the notice of participants in the classes. More importantly, she brings poems that illuminate ways of observing. Each class gives participants a chance to discuss poems as well as time to write them. Molly has a treasure trove of experience with traditional forms, and she conveys as much technical knowledge about poetry as participants desire. But the point is to observe and create. Molly discusses the drafts that participants write, in appreciation for this process, but her Studio Seminar Workshops never operate on the traditional workshop critique model. For Molly, the competition is in the library.
This spring Molly
launches her new series.
The Poetics of Space I: Basements to Attics, the Poem as House, A Seminar-Workshop
In the first of a continuing series of seminar-workshops, Molly Peacock leads the class in writing poems in response to Gaston Bachelard’s iconic volume, The Poetics of Space. This is a class for poets, artists and philosophers interested in poetry. We will read the first two chapters of Bachelard’s book, “The House” and “House and Universe,” writing poems inspired by his ideas, by poems he suggests, as well by paintings and poems about houses and their interiors. For beginners to advanced students, for writers and for readers—all are welcome to a rich conversation and the many creative responses to space that staying in our houses, apartments and rooms provide us now.
Required Text: Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, translated by Maria Jolas.
Upcoming events
Sunday, February 28
2 – 5 pm
Sunday, March 7
2 – 5 pm
Sunday, March 14
2 – 5 pm
Sunday, March 21
2 – 5 pm