Sunday, October 15, 2017, 10:00 A.M. To 1:00 P.M.
The September/ October edition of Poets and Writers Magazine described Caribbean born poet Nicole Sealey as a writer versed in “aesthetics & language, vulnerability and vagrancy, luxury and yearning, drag and systemic repression.” Sealey reports “these multiple means toward narrative is my attempt to keep my relationship to poetry interesting… yet manageable.” From the Zora Neale Hurston admonition to write by a “jump at the sun” to the Ta-Nihisi Coates injunction of sometimes “poetry lives in the void, in the not yet knowable, in the pain, and in the question” we hear another window to the art of spoken word stories.
Jim Moreno advises us to not consider this an invective against the lucid narrative but another window to the art. “ Sealey is simply reminding us that a narrative poem, one that tells a story, can also include ambiguity, mystery, and meter that, apart from the words, gives meaning.”
This two part workshop at the Ink Spot will start with the “jump at the sun”verse of the woman born in St. Thomas Island, raised in the shrub capital of the world, Apopka, Florida, and now residing in New York; geographical and cultural influences which resonate with the multiple influences of many poets like Antonio Machado, Ruben Dario, and Pablo Neruda. Then, the poetic gears will shift to include the earthy Mary Oliver who asks us: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary who hails from Ohio and New England and an older generation of writing, offers a mirror, again like Muchado, to explore the inner by offering symbols from the outer.
Mary Oliver has been on the U.S. Poetry scene since 1963 when her book “No Voyage & Other Poems”, was published. Her poems are grounded in memoir and the natural world. She is another poet who resonates with Machado from her daily walks which echo throughout her poems. She invites the reader to put down all the distractions of modernity and pay attention to the release and joy that poetry can always be. She is the mirror for being grounded in the natural world. The Nation magazine critic Alice Ostriker stated that Oliver “is among the few American poets who can describe and transmit ecstasy, while retaining a practical awareness of the world as one of predators and prey.” For beginning & seasoned poets.