What a nice surprise – last Saturday's event was our first-ever virtual Fest, and it allowed our statewide Colorado poets, as well as far-flung members, to participate. More than 50 poets signed on, including members from the United Kingdom, Hawaii, Vermont and Illinois. Honorary Coloradans, all.
The morning started with readings of 18 award-winning poems
by writers who had entered the annual Members’ Contests. Three categories of
poems won honors and cash prizes: prose poems, traditional forms, and free
verse.
The afternoon featured a delightful workshop and reading by
Sandra McRae, a professor of Creative Writing at Red Rocks College in Lakewood,
CO and a widely published poet. Her theme was adding the lyrical into your
poetry. She offered hints for converting prose to poetry, including these:
· Consider white space that allows the reader to put themselves into the poem. A poem condenses and distills things down to key words, as opposed to sentences or paragraphs which exemplify prose. View the poem as a lightning rod.
·
Start your poem in media res – Jump right
into the middle of the action. Then cut out the first two lines of your
poem, or the last two. Vary your line and stanza length for effect.
·
Be polyphonic – write in multiple voices; or
change the point of view. How about writing from the dog’s POV? Or a tree?
· And my favorite hint: Insert a surprise, levitate a cow in the middle of a stanza!
If you’d like to hear Sandra talk about publication, sign up for her presentation at the Castle Rock Writers Conference, on Saturday, September 26 from 8:00 a.m. to noon.
--Lorrie Wolfe, President, Northern Colorado Chapter, Columbine Poets of Colorado and author of Holding: From Shtetl to Santa from Green Fuse Press.
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