First Poetry Boot Camp of 2012! In Toronto!

The last few months have been insanely busy on the poetry front. First, I've been editing the entire spring 2012 poetry list for Mansfield Press — books by Nelson Ball, Alice Burdick, Jaime Forsythe, and David W. McFadden. On top of that, I've been working intensively on my own new poetry book, my seventh full-length collection, You Exist. Details Follow., coming out next month from Anvil Press.

You Exist. Details Follow. is, I think, a real departure for me. About half of it is comprised of these kinda intuitive, Cubist, splatter poems, not unlike the pieces that made up the third section of Dead Cars in Managua; the other half are very straightforward narratives, albeit with a surrealist sort of bent.

And I probably wrote about half the poems — some from each aesthetic camp — in my own workshops over the past few years.

Which brings me to this: On March 24, I'm running my first Poetry Boot Camp of 2012, in Toronto. Information right here:

STUART ROSS'S POETRY BOOT CAMP

Saturday, March 24, 10am-5 pm (w/ 45-minute lunch break)
Christie/Dupont area
$90 includes materials and light snacks

Prepayment guarantees your spot. To register, write Stuart at
hunkamooga@sympatico.ca.

BOOT CAMP DESCRIPTION
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. We'll also touch on revision and collaboration. You will write in ways you'd never imagined. Arrive with an open mind, and leave with a heap of new poems!

COMMENTS ON MY PREVIOUS BOOT CAMPS:
– "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 most enjoyed the relaxed pace and the self-directed nature of the work."
– "The Boot Camp pushed me beyond my comfort zone in precisely the way that I hoped it would."
– "My favourite part was the variety of non-threatening strategies for writing."
– "Really informative, really helpful workshop. Great energy!"
– "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!"

Over and out.