Reconnect & Reimagine: IWWG 2022

Just as a song is a note-by-note arrangement, just as a painting is a brushstroke-by-brushstroke composition, just as a dance is a move-by-move presentation, a poem is a word-by-word (-by-comma-by-line break) composition. In other words (ha!), a poem is a body of words (not a body of thoughts and feelings); a poem is a body of language’s gestures, just as any artwork is a body of its medium’s gestures. How, in our drafting and revising process, do we assess, smartfully and heartfully, the poetic value of our linguistic gestures? We will explore sample poems gesture-by-gesture—a depth of interrogation that will strengthen how we read and how we write any literary work. This is not a critique group, nor an editing workshop, but a discernment practice.