Test

In this workshop, we will closely examine how land and language are connected forces, both in
contemporary poetry and in our own writing. Poets often turn to the natural world as a means
for investigating that which is hidden from view. Flora and fauna can reflect a speaker’s
interiority, refract a memory, or represent a specific cultural history. Inside, outside. Outside,
inside. Yet land has never been a neutral component—neither has language.
How does place enter a poem? When is incorporating the natural world effective, and when is it
a deflection? How might we encounter the landscape around us to unsettle our diction and risk
new forms?

Email us at hello@thereaderberlin.com to sign up!

Together we will read a selection of poems that explicitly reference the natural world, analyzing
these works to better understand both their experimental and formal elements. Classes will begin
with close reading and discussion, then move into workshop, where we will offer feedback and
reflection on one another’s writing.
Open to all writers: emerging, established, or lapsed. Non-native English speakers are very
welcome. Class is limited to 10 participants.

When they took away Peter’s father he was raving. The end of the world was coming, it was coming soon, and we were all going to die. They knew, but they didn’t want the truth to get out. That’s why he was being silenced, and so on. In response to Mrs Hunter’s emergency call the operator had sent two burly paramedics, but they had not been enough and it had taken an additional four policemen to restrain him.