Quebec Writers' Federation Workshops

Spring Session 2010

Develop your writing with the mentorship of an acclaimed professional writer and feedback from your peers.

Workshops take place at the QWF office, Suite 3, Atwater Library unless otherwise indicated.

STARLING VOICE / LYRIC EAR – A POETRY WORKSHOP

Eight Mondays, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. (March 1 –April 19, 2010)

1200 Atwater Avenue, Suite 3
Workshop leader: Peter Richardson

What do a bunch of back-lot starlings have in common? They’re trying on a whole range of borrowed sounds, altering the ambient racket to suit their spiels. This poetry workshop will touch on the possibilities of writing poems that embrace a variety of diction choices from literate vernacular to hoity-toity grand-dame style to raw but witty Drill-Sergeant speak. Sessions will focus on sharing and responding to each other’s work with some hands-on writing practice thrown in as a leavening agent. However, we won’t only be talking about mask and voice. We’ll be discussing what makes certain poems compelling as well as elements of craft.

For the first session, please bring in either ten copies of a poem you admire by an author other than yourself, or a poem of your own that you’re comfortable with sharing. Either is fine. Starting in the second week, we’ll aim to workshop a poem each from three different participants per session. All levels of experience are welcome. Bring paper and pencils.

Peter Richardson has lived in the province of Quebec since 1969. He has published three books with Véhicule Press. A Tinker’s Picnic (1999) and An ABC of Belly Work (2003) were short-listed respectively for the Gerald Lampert Award and the Acorn-Plantos Award. Sympathy For the Couriers (2007), his third book, won the QWF’s 2008 A.M. Klein Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry (Chicago), Sonora Review, Poetry Ireland Review and The Malahat Review among others. He has been an active participant in poetry workshops for twenty years, both in Montreal and Ottawa.

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