Below you'll find the complete guide to everything poetry at Lit Fest 2023, including craft seminars and readings from headliners Forrest Gander, Carmen Giménez, Patricia Smith, and more. Choose intensives, seminars, and events á la carte or sign up for one of our festival passes for the full experience.
Two-Day Intensives
June 10-11
In Memoriam: Poetry and Grief (Virtual)
Toby Altman, 9:00am - 12:00pm
This course will introduce writers to one of the most important poetic genres: the elegy. We'll explore some famous, canonical examples of the genre, like John Milton's "Lycidas," to get a sense of how it has traditionally worked—and what its shortcomings are. And we'll study contemporary poets who rework the elegy: making the old form new again—and newly relevant to the griefs of the present, from the AIDS crisis to Black Lives Matter.
Writing the Short Poem
John Brehm, 1:00 - 4:00pm
“Brevity is the soul of wit,” Shakespeare wrote, and to illustrate the point, here is a very brief poem by A.R. Ammons, titled "Their Sex Life": "One failure on/ Top of another." The unforgettable image, the delight in the ordinary, the quick strike that makes the mind leap: in this two-day intensive, we’ll explore these and many other charms of short poems and try our hands at writing some ourselves.
The Ghost, The Glimmer: A Generative and Experimental Workshop
Sarah Elizabeth Schantz, 1:00 - 4:00pm
Using divination techniques like bibliomancy, Tarot, and other oracles, we’ll borrow from Pam Houston's “glimmer” to draw down the muse. Thinking about what haunts us, we’ll rummage in the etymology of words, excavate the archives, and call upon our ancestors. We’ll explore the zeitgeist and the overlap of past, present, and tomorrow in narrative. We’ll throw the stones, write down the bones, and wrap our fingers around our roots. Considering the power of the invisible (subtext, secrets, the arcane, the “truth,” or even God), this intensive is generative while focusing on the art of revision as resurrection for some of the darlings we had to kill.
June 14-15
Outsider Poets (Virtual)
Elizabeth Robinson, 4:00 - 7:00pm
We’ll use outsider poets as inspiration—John Clare, Jean Toomer, Besmilr Brigham, and dg nanouk okpik—to draw inspiration from poets working outside conventional educational, cultural, or stylistic norms. Using poems by these authors, we’ll claim permission for creative rule-breaking of all sorts! All levels of experience welcome in this generative study and writing intensive.
Craft Seminars
Friday, June 9
Morning Session (9:00 to 11:00 AM MDT)
- Rediscovering Our Forgotten Tongues (Virtual)
Oso Guardiola - The Emily Dickinson Experience
Lynn Wagner - Cut-Up and Remix
Teow Lim Goh
Afternoon Session (1:30 to 3:00 PM MDT)
- The Poetry of Spirituality
Joy Roulier Sawyer - Ekphrastic Poetry
Carolina Ebeid
Early Evening Session (4:00 to 6:00 PM MDT)
- Letters as a Literary Form
Teow Lim Goh - Poetic Revision and Praxis
Carmen Giménez
Saturday, June 10
Early Evening Session (4:00 to 6:00 PM MDT)
- Exploring the Various Schools of Prose Poetry (Virtual)
Jose Hernandez Diaz - The Language We Inherit
Suzi Q. Smith
Sunday, June 11
Morning Session (9:00 to 11:00 AM MDT)
- The Poetic Line: From Breath to Lineation
Radha Marcum - What We Don't, What We Can't, What We Never, What Is Not
Peter Markus
Afternoon Session (1:30 to 3:00 PM MDT)
- In the World: Writing Parenthood Beyond the Domestic
Emily Perez - Sounds and Visions: How We Work Together (Virtual)
Maw Shein Win - Reading and Writing Displacement
Poupeh Missaghi
Monday, June 12
Afternoon Session (1:30 to 3:00 PM MDT)
- Ruining All the Fun We Can
Patricia Smith
Early Evening Session (4:00 to 6:00 PM MDT)
- Just Two Poems
Lynn Wagner - Inspiration and Techniques for Older Writers
Cynthia Swanson - Living in the Layers: Mindfulness and Writing (Virtual)
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg - The Poetic Line
Suzi Q. Smith
Tuesday, June 13
Afternoon Session (1:30 to 3:00 PM MDT)
- The Anatomy of a Standout Poetry Manuscript
Radha Marcum - Contemporary Ekphrasis
Forrest Gander - Persona and the Poem (Virtual)
Elizabeth Robinson - The Poetics of Childhood
Peter Markus - The Poetics and Meanderings of Travel Writing
Juan J. Morales
Early Evening Session (4:00 to 6:00 PM MDT)
- Exploring Surreal Prose Poetry Through Generative Prompts (Virtual)
Jose Hernandez Diaz - Poetry is For the Birds (Virtual)
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Wednesday, June 14
Afternoon Session (1:30 to 3:00 PM MDT)
- Using Epistolary Form to Jump Start a Poem
Emily Perez - Your Visual Poetics (Virtual)
Cindy Juyoung Ok
Early Evening Session (4:00 to 6:00 PM MDT)
- Insects and Poetic Inspiration (Virtual)
Jodie Hollander
Thursday, June 15
Morning Session (9:00 to 11:00 AM MDT)
- Get Out Of Your Own Way (Virtual)
Alyse Knorr
Afternoon Session (1:30 to 3:00 PM MDT)
- Crash Course to Hybrid Writing (Virtual)
Alyse Knorr - The Sequence Poem
Sawnie Morris
Early Evening Session (4:00 to 6:00 PM MDT)
- Fate and Chance
Sheila Heti - Mining Memories (Virtual)
Alyse Knorr - Writing In Response (Virtual)
Cindy Juyoung Ok
Friday, June 16
Afternoon Session (1:30 to 3:00 PM MDT)
- Creating Art in Dark Times
R. Alan Brooks - Found Poetry: Creating the New from the Now
Grace Wagner - List Poems (Virtual)
Elizabeth Robinson
Events and Parties
Friday, June 9
Lit Fest Soft Opening - 6:00 to 8:00 PM MDT
Saturday, June 10
Poetry Collective Celebration - 4:30 to 6:00 PM MDT
Visiting Authors Reading and Conversation: Grace M. Cho, Jonathan Escoffery, Carmen Giménez, Leslie Jamison - 7:00 to 8:15 PM MDT
Sunday, June 11
Queer Creatives Brunch - 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM MDT
The Kickoff Party* - 6:00 to 9:00 PM MDT
Monday, June 12
Friday 500: Book Project Spotlight - 4:30 to 6:00 PM MDT
Writing in Color Presents: Happy Hour and Film Screening/Discussion - 6:00 to 9:00 PM MDT
Tuesday, June 13
Lit Fest Fellows Reading and Find Your Collective - 4:30 to 6:00 PM MDT
Visiting Authors Reading and Conversation: Sheila Heti, Katie Kitamura, Amitava Kumar, Rachel Kushner, Claire Messud - 7:00 to 8:15 PM MDT
Wednesday, June 14
A Night of Culinary Storytelling* - 4:30 to 6:00 PM MDT
Visiting Authors Reading and Conversation: Steve Almond, Forrest Gander, Rebecca Makkai, Nadia Owusu, Akhil Sharma - 7:00 to 8:15 PM MDT
Thursday, June 15
Queer Creatives Presents: Game Night - 4:30 to 6:00 PM MDT
Visiting Authors Reading and Conversation: Dean Bakopoulos, Andre Dubus III, Patricia Smith, Michelle Tea - 7:00 to 8:15 PM MDT
Friday, June 16
Closing Party - 6:00 to 9:00 PM MDT
