Queer
Poetry Workshop
*An eight-week class*
with Colleen McKee
*About
the workshop
In an environment of honesty
and encouragement, queer writers of all levels of experience will stretch their
poetic muscles. We’ll try a variety of topics, moods, and structures. We’ll
explore what it means to write poetry that can celebrate as well as mourn, be
silly as well as serious, that honors the body yet is intellectual. We will
also explore the process of writing, what hinders us and what pushes us further.
To help us explore new directions and unknown strengths, we’ll use the book The
Poet’s Companion by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux.
In addition, we’ll learn
about the history of queer poets and their poetry. As we only have 8 weeks, we’ll
focus on writers who have lived in the U.S., writers from different backgrounds
in terms of ethnicity, culture, age, gender/gender expression, sexual
orientation, region, and country of origin. We’ll mostly study writers of the
20th and 21st centuries, brave poets who tried different
styles and who belong/ed to various poetic schools or circles. So we’ll read
work from Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry, edited by
Timothy Liu, as well as poems we can find online at Lavender Review, a
queer women’s literary journal, and possibly other work online.
(What do I mean by queer? Gay,
lesbian, bisexual/pansexual, transgender, gender non-binary, etc…)
The class is limited to four
students.
*About the instructor
Colleen Shoshana McKee earned her MFA in Creative Writing from
the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she taught English, and Gender Studies,
including classes on queer literature and creative writing. Her 20 years of teaching
experience also includes many small creative writing workshops for adults. She
is the author of 6 books of poetry, memoir, and fiction. Her latest collection
of poetry, Routine Bloodwork, was aa finalist for the Charlotte Mew Award
from Headmistress Press, a queer women’s press.
*Class details
~ Sundays, 12-2 pm. (with a 10-min. break)
~ Meets online (Zoom or Google Meet) from May 30th-July
18th, 2021
~ Tuition Cost: $280 (ask if you need an installment plan)
~ For more information or to register for the class, contact
Colleen Shoshana at 314.898.8289, at misscolleenmckee@yahoo.com, or on
Facebook.
