When Form Meets Content: Playing Matchmaker Between Structure and Subject: A Poetry Workshop with Alexis Sears (Zoom)

Like the age-old chicken and egg debate, poets often discuss whether form or content comes first. It’s a tricky, perhaps unanswerable question; however, this single-session workshop will explore the relationship between what a poem says and the structure it uses to say it. We’ll look at forms that naturally pair with certain subjects, like how pantoums repeat lines to ruminate or the mirror form’s ability to contain multiple perspectives in a single poem. From there, we’ll push into stranger territory: what happens when you pair an irreverent subject with a classic form, like a sonnet? What could the impact be of combining wacky or modern subject material with old-school techniques?

Through close readings and guided writing prompts, participants will investigate how form can amplify, complicate, undermine, or totally transform content. We’ll work with traditional and nonce forms, discovering how constraint can spark invention and how unexpected pairings can create surprise,…