The Keats-Shelley House is delighted to present a series of poetry-writing workshops led by Rome-based American poet Moira Egan. The series of four workshops will take place at the Keats-Shelley House on the following days:

Saturday 15 March, 10.00 - 13.00

Saturday 22 March, 10.00 - 13.00

Saturday 29 March, 10.00 - 13.00

Saturday 5 April, 10.00 - 13.00

The price of the workshops is €150 per person, and advance booking is essential.

“Something shimmers, something is hushed up”: a poetry workshop

An effective poem walks a fine line between precision and mystery, using vivid imagery to take the reader to an unexpected place of wonder and, often, delight. Keats himself described the state of “Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” In this workshop, students will produce and discuss their own poems with an eye toward that fine line between clarity of imagery and mystery of metaphor. Writing prompts (optional), gentle but thorough criticism, and camaraderie with other dedicated poets will encourage progress along each student’s path.  

(line from John Ashbery’s poem, “This Room”)

Moira Egan has been teaching literature and creative writing for more than twenty years. Her students have won numerous awards, and have published chapbooks, full-length poetry collections, and in many literary journals and anthologies. Moira’s sixth poetry collection, Strange Botany/Botanica Arcana, will be published by Pequod in 2014. Her previous collections are Hot Flash Sonnets (Passager Books, 2013), Spin (Entasis Press, 2010); Bar Napkin Sonnets (The Ledge, 2009); La Seta della Cravatta/The Silk of the Tie (Edizioni l’Obliquo, 2009); and Cleave (WWPH, 2004).

Moira’s work has won many awards and has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad, including Best American Poetry 2008, The Book of Forms, and Lofty Dogmas: Poets on Poetics. With her husband, Damiano Abeni, she has published more than a dozen volumes in translation in Italy, by authors such as Ashbery, Barth, Bender, Ferlinghetti, Hecht, Strand, and others. Their translations of Italian poems into English are published in many U.S. journals and in the FSG Book of 20th Century Italian Poetry and in Patrizia Cavalli’s My Poems Will Not Change the World (FSG). She holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College, Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University.

If you're thinking of enrolling, there is an opportunity to meet Moira and her husband, Damiano Abeni, at the Keats-Shelley House on Wednesday 5 March at 18.00, where they will give a reading of their work and also answer any questions you might have about the workshop beginning on 15 March.