Intensive: Some People Like Poetry: Writing Like a Reader with Edward Hirsch
Emily Dickinson spoke of her “enthralling friends, the immortalities.” Some of Edward Hirsch s most enthralling friends have been the modern European and Latin American poets, who have troubled and enlarged his idea of the lyric poem. In this intensive two-day craft class and generative workshop, we will read
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startling poems in translation by a wide range of poets from other countries, such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Anna Akhmatova, Constantin Cavafy, Jorge Luis Borges, Zbigniew Herbert, and Wislawa Szymborska. We will use their poems as triggers, instigations, and incitements, and write our own responses, either in poetry or prose. It will be a form of responsive reading, of call and response. We will read like writers and write like readers. And this will enable us to become both better writers and better readers. In-Person 2-Day Intensive | Saturday + Sunday | November 7-8 | 11am-3pm ET This in-person intensive will take place at Poets House in the Kunitz Conference Room on the second floor; elevator access is available. Author photo by Garrett Hongo. All are welcome, space is limited. A limited number of need-based scholarships are available. Please email support@poetshouse.org with any questions. By attending or participating in this program, you agree to abide by our Community Agreement. About the Educator: Edward Hirsch, a MacArthur Fellow, has published ten books of poems, including The Living Fire (2011), Gabriel: A Poem (2014), a book-length elegy for his son which The New Yorker called “a masterpiece of sorrow,” and Stranger by Night (2020). He has also published eight books of prose, among them How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national bestseller, 100 Poems to Break Your Heart (2021), and The Heart of American Poetry (2022). Amongst other awards, he has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal of Honor, and the National Jewish Book Award. His most recent book is a memoir, My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, A Skokie Elegy (2025). He taught at Wayne State University and the University of Houston. Since 2003, he has served as president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.