Shadow Form: A Masterclass for Poets with David Baker (via Zoom)

How could poets use traditional forms to write “free verse” poems? We’ll look at a range of classic and contemporary poetry to consider ways by which you might employ aspects of a formal poem—from its outer structures to inner rhetoric—to craft a new poem not “in” that form but ghosting or shadowing that form. It’s one thing to recognize a pantoum; but is it possible—is it fruitful—to employ technical structures of a pantoum to provide a partial or hidden form, rather than a complete template, for your new poem? That is, can you use the ghosts of earlier forms to write new poems? I’ll provide a range of poems for us to read and discuss, and together we’ll explore ways to create prompts and opportunities for your new work.

David Baker is author of thirteen books of poetry, recently Whale Fall (Norton, 2022), Swift: New and Selected Poems, (2019), Scavenger…