208: PBPF, Day 5

Evening's Reader: Dara Wier. Her poetry plays with convention and expectation.


Evening's Reader: Gregory Orr, whose personal story has a tragic moment, which is told in The Blessing, which recounts the story of when he accidentally shot and killed his brother at the age of twelve. His own work is quiet and lyrical, and in workshop, I hear he is good and pushes the poet to explain why certain choices were made. Understanding this motivation could help strengthen the next draft, and the next.

I am learning, slowly, how to package these messages I've been given this week: how to give myself the vocabulary to remember. I knew much of this before, the radiance and the close examination, the ways in which to do it, but I hadn't been shown how, hadn't had exactly the right tools. I have much to mull over and process and hopes to bring it into my own work and the critiques I give of others'--to be more of use. And despite any difficulties I may have had with the workshop last semester, to bring those tools into seminar and make the best of a learning experience. To be of use. To myself and others.