The Practice of Poetry: Reading, Conversation, Writing

For the first three Tuesdays in January and February, JoEllen Moldoff will coordinate a class for poets, from beginners to experienced, who want to learn more about the craft of poetry and to write new poems.

“The Practice of Poetry: Reading, Conversation, Writing,” will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Public Library. There is a Library/Copying Fee of $10 per participant. Registration begins this week in the library.

Moldoff says, “We will engage in active reading and discussion of poems,  learning from poets who teach, and  will have the opportunity to write in response to exercises and prompts.”

She submits a poem by Linda Pastan:

A New Poet

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don’t see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day—the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.