Poetry Writing Retreat with James Arthur 

The Lighthouse Literary Guild at Salisbury University's Center for Extended & Lifelong Learning is hosting a one-day poetry writing retreat with visiting scholar James Arthur, August 24 from 10 am to 4 pm. The noted poet and Johns Hopkins University professor will guide an immersive writing experience and collaborative workshop, lunch included. $95. EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT! $80 IF REGISTERED AND PAID BY AUGUST 1!!

This class will be an immersion in the craft of writing poetry. We’ll look at several contemporary poems, paying close attention to structural elements like meter, assonance, refrain, and the poet’s management of the verse line. Above all, we’ll be asking how each poem establishes expectations in the reader’s mind, and then either gratifies or subverts those expectations. There will also be a few brief in-class writing exercises that will give participants the opportunity to apply these techniques in first-draft poems of their own. 

James Arthur’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and Ploughshares. His first book, Charms Against Lightning, was published in 2012 by Copper Canyon Press.

He has received the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, a Hodder Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship, and a Fulbright Scholarship to the Seamus Heaney Centre in Northern Ireland.

Arthur lives in Baltimore, where he teaches at Johns Hopkins University. During the summer of 2017, he is in residence at the Al Purdy A-frame in Ameliasburgh.

Other Lighthouse Literary Guild Offerings

Lighthouse Literary Guild Writing Classes. Six sessions meeting once a week for 90 minutes each session, $60 for each course. Class sizes are limited. Register online.

Fall 2017 Session I

• Using Poetic Devices to Enrich Your Writing with Nancy Mitchell. Mondays beginning 9/18 from 4:30-6 pm. 
• Using the Masters to Master Your Voice with Shannon Hinman. Wednesdays beginning 9/20 from 4:30-6 pm.
• Grammar is for Grown-Ups with Susan Canfora. Thursdays beginning 9/21 from 2:30-4 pm. 

Fall 2017 Session II

• Using Poetic Devices to Enrich Your Writing with Nancy Mitchell. Mondays beginning 11/6 from 4:30-6 pm. 
• Creating and Managing a Killer Blog with Mindie Burgoyne. Tuesdays beginning 11/7 from 4-5:30 pm. 
• Show, Don't Tell - Using Art as Your Muse with Shannon Hinman. Wednesdays beginning 11/8 from 4:30-6 pm.
• Writing for Publication with Susan Canfora. Thursdays beginning 11/9 from 2:30-4 pm.