Replay: View Carl Phillips' recent class.
Plus: Replays of great sessions from five more poets we admire.
“I think of my definition of poetry as patterned language, because otherwise it’s just prose or a grocery list or a number of things—otherwise you’re just recording what people are saying.”
“When I’m writing I can’t be thinking that I’m writing a poem; I distract myself from that and only later look at the draft and realize I used a word many times or laid the poem out a certain way. There are patterns we impose—it’s how the mind works—and the task is to notice what they are.”
“One of the nerdiest things about me is that I love to see how many sentences long a poem is, because giving a short sentence after a long one gives the reader a bit of respite. It’s like the way Hemingway slips in a line that unspools beautifully: the reader gets space to roam for a moment.”
“I think of my definition of poetry as patterned language, because otherwise it’s just prose or a grocery list or a number of things—otherwise you’re just recording what people are saying.”
“I made up a little poem—’I want a truck. I want a house. I want a pool. I want a TV. I want to marry you.’ See how suddenly it broke the pattern? The pattern wasn’t merely repeating the same words but repeating a verb plus a concrete thing, and at the very end we get a verb plus a verb phrase instead, so the reader’s attention is drawn to something different.”
“Knowing what the patterning devices are lets you take them into revision—revise means to re-see. You can re-see a poem by casting it in a different tense or shifting point of view, and as soon as I make a first-person poem into third person I often start saying things I didn’t have the courage to say when I felt it was personally me speaking.”
– Carl Phillips, Five Things I’ve Learned about Patterns in Poetry
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Phillips kicked off a brand-new year of live classes last Sunday, hosting the inspiring Five Things I’ve Learned about Patterns in Poetry. It was a great way to learn how an accomplished poet reads and thinks about the poems he loves. Carl shared his perspective on how poetry functions, focusing specifically on the impact that pattern, repetition, and expectation have on our understanding.
It was a fantastic session, and we were delighted to share it in partnership with Maya C. Popa and her Conscious Writers Collective. (Maya will be back with her own live two-hour class, Five Things I’ve Learned about Writing Desire, this Tuesday night.)
In the meantime, Carl’s session got us thinking: We have a wealth of poetry classes in our archive. It feels like the perfect time to remind folks how much there is to discover.
Below, please enjoy the first five minutes of Carl’s recent class—which, like 150 other classes, you can find anytime on demand at myfivethings.com. Along with Carl’s Replay, we’re sharing five related Replays of some of our favorite poetry sessions.
Watching these clips is a great way to see just how wise and varied these classes can be. If you want to see more, remember that you can purchase a ticket for any single archive class at full price. Even better, you can use our MultiPass to purchase access to any three archived classes for just $60—or get six archived classes of your choosing for $90. (The only note: The Multipass applies to our archives, not to the sessions in our current season.)
And yes, of course, you can use the MultiPass to mix and match any topics you wish—you aren’t limited to poetry!
But this is a great sampling to start with.
More soon, but for now, we hope you’ll take a look.
Best wishes,
-The Five Things I’ve Learned team
Sunday’s Replay: Carl Phillips Shares Five Things He’s Learned about Patterns in Poetry
View this replay of the first five minutes of our live class from Pulitzer Prize winning poet Carl Phillips. Then, check out the full 90-minute archive and discover the Five Things He’s Learned about some of the less obvious – but common – ways in which patterns arise and contribute meaning in poems we love.
Related Replays: Five More Poets We Admire
View the Replay of the first five minutes of our live class from poet, fiction writer, and essayist Kim Addonizio. Then, check out the full two-hour archive and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about the way that great poems work to surprise us, transcend time, and take us to unexpected places.
View the Replay of the first five minutes of our live class from award-winning poet, novelist, teacher, and scholar Kaveh Akbar. Then, check out the 90-minute archive and discover the Five Things He’s learned about the ways antiquity’s spiritual verse can help us to better understand ourselves – and to sit more comfortably in our own uncertain times.
View the Replay of the first five minutes of our live class from acclaimed poet and writer Victoria Chang. Then, check out the two-hour archive and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about the ways that following an unconventional path can be a surprising source of creative inspiration and innovation.
View the Replay of the first five minutes of our live class from award-winning poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield. Then, check out the full two-hour archive and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about the ways that poems’ original seeing can be invited, recognized, and worked with to open new depth, openness, and possibility – in words and in lives.
View the Replay of the first five minutes our live class from writer, editor, and teacher Maya C. Popa. Then, check out the archive of two-hour Maya’s class, and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about how poetic form both organizes and conveys our essential emotions and insights.
Visit myfivethings.com to view personal video invitations from these and other writers, thinkers, and artists we admire – and to get special discounted pricing with our Five Things I’ve Learned Multi Pass.
Plus, coming live and online Tuesday night:
Join poet, editor, and founder of Conscious Writers Collective Maya C. Popa in this live, two-hour class and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about the ways that poets can bring desire to the page with heat, precision, mystery, and verve.