Once In a Moon! Guest Teacher Workshop
Poemscaping: Trim. Write. Repeat. with Matthew Feinstein
Surprise the Line presents a special one-time guest workshop led by experienced writers on a topic of their choosing every first Saturday of the month. This month, you will learn a bold and effective strategy to revise your working poems!
This revision workshop helps poets create new horizons for their work by creating a no-pressure environment where trimming a poem leads to its rebirth.
What We’ll Do Together:
In this workshop, participants will learn how to systematically revise a poem that they have been struggling with. They will do this by first pointing out and letting go of details they have become attached to so they can look at the piece with a fresh perspective. Then they will trim the poem to find what shines. Finally, they will elaborate—turning that shiny poem even into something even more radiant.
What You’ll Get From This Workshop:
• A comprehensive toolkit for revising poems
• A fresh perspective on a poem you’ve been stuck on
• Tangible suggestions on how you can revise your poem
What You'll Need:
A poem you have been working on that you are willing to play around with.
About the Teacher:
Matthew Feinstein is a poet, educator and editor who holds a BA in English – Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach and is pursuing an MFA at Randolph College. He has served as a supplemental instructor in English at California State University, Dominguez Hills. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys, Rejection Letters, Heavy Feather Review and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of Plum Recruit.