Poetry workshops in Toronto coming right up!

I'm offering up two workshops this month in Toronto. One is the ever-popular Poetry Boot Camp; the other is a new workshop on collaborative poetry, which I going to be a blast.

Here's the skinny, followed by a brief bio for me and a heap of comments participants have made about my past sessions.

STUART ROSS'S POETRY BOOT CAMP
Saturday, October 18, 10am-5 pm (w/ 45-minute lunch break)

Christie/Dupont area
$75 includes materials & light snacks

To register, write Stuart at hunkamooga@sympatico.ca

A relaxed but intensive one-day workshop for beginning poets, experienced poets, stalled poets, and haikuists who want to get beyond three lines. Poetry Boot Camp focuses on the pleasures of poetry and the riches that spontaneity brings, through lively directed writing strategies and relevant readings from the works of poets from Canada and abroad. Arrive with an open mind, and leave with a heap of new poems!


COLLABORATIVE POETRY
Monday, October 27, 6:30-9:30 pm
Christie/Dupont area
$35 includes materials & light snacks

To register, write Stuart at hunkamooga@sympatico.ca

Spend an evening writing poems with complete strangers! This new workshop explores the exciting possibilities that arise when more than one brain creates a poem. A wide range of approaches — including methods used by the Surrealists and the New York Poets — will produce poems unlike anything you’ve ever written.

MY BIO

I am the author of six full-length poetry collections, including the acclaimed I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press) and Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New & Selected (ECW Press). DC Books has just published my newest collection, Dead Cars in Managua. I'm Poetry Editor for Mansfield Press and Fiction & Poetry Editor for This Magazine. I also writes a regular column — "Hunkamooga," which recently received props from a New York Times Book Review writer — for the literary magazine sub-Terrain. For nearly 25 years, I've led writing workshops and I've brought my popular Poetry Boot Camp to venues across Canada. In 2009, Freehand Books will release my second short-story collection, Buying Cigarettes For The Dog.


COMMENTS ON MY PREVIOUS WORKSHOPS

“I really enjoyed myself and felt like I got a lot done. I thank you very much for the stimulation & the relaxed atmosphere.”

“Yay! Excited to go back to trying to write poems. I have so many new things to try now. Thanks!”

“I liked being exposed to the familiar in a new, fresh, creative way.”

“I found all the exercises helpful.”

“A big help! I have a much better idea now of how to get the ball rolling.”

“Just what I needed!”

“I most enjoyed the relaxed pace and the self-directed nature of the work.”

“I loved hearing other people’s work & liked that there was all positive response.”

“The Boot Camp pushed me beyond my comfort zone in precisely the way that I hoped it would.”

“Thank you, Stuart, for opening the door.”

“Excellent pacing! The day passes quickly — it really is a boot camp!”

“I really enjoyed all of the exercises!”

“I wrote much more than I anticipated — that’s a good thing.”

“You always get such interesting characters attending your workshops!”

“Really interesting. Touched on a lot of subjects that got me excited and made me think of areas that I had put away.”

“Excellent overall. I got a lot of out of it. Money very well spent! I’d recommend it to others.”

“Very well-run, well-thought-out workshop! Thanks!”

“My favourite part was the variety of non-threatening strategies for writing.”

“Really informative, really helpful workshop. Great energy!”


Over & out.