Here we are in a new year. Perhaps one of your intentions for 2015 is to write more, to return to writing, or to try writing poetry for the first time? I’m offering generative writing workshops many times and places in the coming months, and would love to see you there.

Here’s where I’ll offer free “Poetry for All” workshops in January (click on the blue text for location info).

Jan. 16: Mount Vernon Library. 4:30 to 6p.

Jan. 21: Northwest Indian College – Nisqually campus (Walker building). 1to 3p.

Jan. 28:  Port Angeles Library. 3:30 to 5p. (This workshop is FULL.)

Poetry for All

Join Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen for a free, hands-on poetry workshop designed to engage participants’ imaginations, life histories and sense of empathy through language. The class includes close reading of a few contemporary poems, then using one as a model for writing our own first draft. No previous writing experience needed, and all are welcome. Maximum 20 participants.

And here’s a list of some of the model poems we’ll read and discuss:

“The Gate” by Marie Howe

“Restoration” by Mary Cornish

“Twenty Years After His Passing, My Father Appears to Us in Chicago, at Bobby Chin’s Crab and Oyster House, in the Guise of Our Waiter, Ramon” by Peter Pereira

“memory” by Lucille Clifton

“Eating Together” by Li-Young Lee