Sunday: Healing Poetry [Adult]

The relationship between poetry and healing is intuitive, and that writing poetry can be personally therapeutic in times of emotional upheaval is well-known. However, the best poems written in this vein soothe the soul not only of the author, but also of the many readers who come after. In this workshop we will look at some poems that achieve this—from confessional poets like Anne Sexton to Maggie Smith, whose contemporary poem, “Good Bones” became a “societal anxiety barometer”—and then practice writing our own.

About the Teaching Artist
Anna Evans gained her Master of Fine Arts from Bennington College. Her poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, The Atlanta Review, Rattle and 32 Poems. She has been nominated five times for a Pushcart Prize and was a finalist for both the 2005 and 2007 Howard Nemerov sonnet award, and for the 2007 Willis Barnstone Translation Award.  Anna is also the Editor of The Raintown Review and of the formal poetry e-zine Barefoot Muse.