WRITING THE BODY

Dates: Six fall meetings: 10/13, 10/19, 10/20, 10/26, 10/27, 11/2
Format: Videoconference (Zoom)
Cost: Sliding ($300, $400, $500)
Entrance: Submission only (see below); 8 participants maximum

THE CLASS

An injunction from DH Lawrence goes like this:

You don’t want to be an animal, you want to observe your own animal functions, to get a mental thrill out of them. It’s all purely secondary——and more decadent than the most hide-bound intellectualism. What is it but the worst and last form of intellectualism, this love of yours for passion and the animal instincts? Passion and the instincts——you want them hard enough, but through your head, in your consciousness. It all takes place in your head, under that skull of yours.——Only you won’t be conscious of what actually is: you want the lie that will match the rest of your furniture.

——How, then, do we begin to write past volition, at night, lights and reason shut off? If doesn’t seem easy; but the pursuit feels very, very worthy. What would that Writing look like?

We’ll begin with cross-disciplinary ‘texts’ that attempt a kind of embodiment themselves, a free-wheeling representation of the fleshly, or theories of the sensual and creative drives: Whitman, Cixous, Sexton, Neruda, Clifton, Lorde, Francis Bacon, Shelley Jackson, Martha Graham. Then we’ll explore techniques that reveal a sensing body before a censoring reason: meditation, écriture automatique, erasure.

Our ultimate question is: Can the feeling body claim the mind’s greatest resource——language——to reclaim its originary cry? the one predating speech? What is the ‘poem’ of the famished Paleolithic gatherer finding a blackberry bush? What paragraph belongs to the orgasm?

THE COST

Please pay what pressures yr pocket some, but not enough to break you.

GENRES

Poems, prose, or hybrids; genre is a marker of convenience and cannot define our interest in text that is frightfully alive.

WHAT YOU’LL PRODUCE

Three (or more) new or seriously revised pieces.

WHAT YOU’LL RECEIVE

Earnest critique, community, and investment in your writing.

WORKSHOP LOGISTICS

Sessions generally run 2-3 hours in the evening, beginning at 7 EST.

HOW DO I SIGN UP?

First, submit 3-5 pages of your ‘best’ writing (the writing you think best represents your aspirations) to our Submittable (free of charge) by 6/25. Next, wait for our review and reply (by 7/1); if you’re selected, we’ll send along preliminary readings, links, and payment options.

THE TEACHING ARTISTS:

Joseph Spece read English and philosophy at Boston College, and took his MFA from Columbia University. His books are BAD ZOO (FATHOM 2018) and Roads (Cherry Grove 2013); periodical credits include Poetry, DIAGRAM, Volt, AGNI, datableedzine, 3:AM, TriQuarterly, Fond, Salamander, Berfrois, and Best American Experimental Writing, with cross-genre editorial and reader credits at Narrative, Noble/Gas Quarterly, and The Paris Review. His public honors in writing include a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, artist fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Corrente Prize in Poetry from Columbia University. He is founding editor at FATHOMBOOKS, a micropress with special interest in women writers and queers; he splits time between Wellesley and Provincetown, MA.

Eric Westerlind is a writer, editor, and graphic designer. He's worked alongside Joseph at SHARKPACK Poetry Review, her periodical SPR Annual, and on the design front at FATHOMBOOKS. Prior to that, he co-founded and edited The Bacon Review with Jason Barry, which segued into professional editing as a service. He's operated EW & I Design since 2010; works actively with Clawfoot Press as editor, contributor, and designer; records two podcasts on writing and reading, The Nudge and Powerhouse; publishes stories and poems to friends and family and ever-so infrequently to presses; has a degree, is wickedly rent-free, loves crackers, and is nearly done with his first novel, UGO: A Pilgrimage, which has taken longer than anticipated, but no longer than many other books.