Ancient poets claimed that their poetic powers came from the gods. The Greek epic poet Hesiod, in his Theogony (The Birth of the Gods), says that the Muses came to him on Mount Helicon when he was pasturing sheep, gave him a scepter of laurel, and breathed into him the power of poetry—a process called “poetic investiture,” meaning the conferring of poetic powers upon a mortal by a divine being. Where do our poetic powers come from? What does “inspiration” mean to us? Is poetry a gift from the gods, or the product of blood, sweat, and tears? Can it be both? Does it matter? How can we know?

In this Summer Virtual Poetry Intensive workshop, we will share and explore our own ideas about the myths and realities of inspiration and the sources of poetry within each of us. But more than that, we will use this exploration to inform our writing. We will tell our own stories of poetic investiture, whatever form or forms we believe it has taken in our own lives, and we will experiment with using these ideas to understand our own poetic process and generate new poems.

We'll meet over Zoom on the following dates from 6:30pm-8:30pm:

June 5, 2024

June 12, 2024

June 19, 2024

June 26, 2024

July 3, 2024

July 10, 2024