Looking and Seeing: Poems of Description and Observation (Margaret Mackinnon)

This seminar will meet in person at WriterHouse for one session on Saturday, October 18 from 1:00 to 5:00 PM.

Description:

On some level, most poems rely on description, but in this one-day seminar, we’ll discuss poems that use description and observation as primary strategies. In his biography of Henry David Thoreau, Robert Richardson echoes Thoreau when he observes, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” How can poets move beyond looking to a space of actually seeing in their work? How can a poem that begins in description become an act of exploration? Members of the class will receive a packet of poems reflecting this theme, including some ekphrastic poems (poems written in response to works of art). We’ll use our time together to talk about some of the sample poems, but our primary focus will be on work written by seminar participants. This seminar is open to poets at all stages of developing their craft.

About the Instructor:

Margaret Mackinnon is the author of two collections of poetry, The Invented Child (Silverfish Review Press 2013), winner of the 2014 Literary Award in Poetry from the Library of Virginia, and Afternoon in Cartago (Ashland Poetry Press 2022), winner of the Richard Snyder Memorial Publication Prize. Her work has appeared in The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Image, Poetry, Blackbird, and other journals. She attended Vassar College and the University of North Carolina, and she received her MFA in poetry from the University of Florida. She lives with her family in Richmond.