Poetry for Life with Katharine Harer

“Poetry is a life companion,” says instructor Katharine Harer. “People come and go, pets die, places change, but poetry doesn’t go away because it’s already inside you. It keeps you company through life’s ups and downs and, above all, it connects you to yourself, guiding you through the maze of your thoughts and feelings.”

In this half-day class, we will read and discuss poems by writers such as Mary Oliver, Frank O’Hara, Lucille Clifton and Li-Young Lee. We’ll talk about what “works” for us in the poems, and Katharine will identify some of the elements of craft poets use to help both the reader, and the poet, create connection. We’ll do several in-class writing activities, starting with freeing-up exercises and moving on to poetry writing prompts that will help you discover new ways to express what’s going on inside and outside of you.

When the class ends, you’ll take away some helpful tools and strategies for continuing to write poetry on your own as well as new drafts of poems that got their start in our class.