Making Conversation: Inviting New Voices into The Poem

“The Sun woke me this morning loud and clear, saying "Hey! I've been trying to wake you up for fifteen minutes.” In Frank O’Hara’s “A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island,” the dialogue creates character, humor, tension, and meaning. How might we invite other voices into our poems as a way to open new opportunities? In this generative workshop we will read and discuss poems that make use of quotations and dialogue as counterpoints to the voice of the speaker, exploring what extra voices make possible, and using these techniques as springboards for our own work.