This year’s Compose conference will feature keynote speaker Stephen Graham Jones and offer workshops on a variety of writing topics such as science-fiction, fairytale, poetry, and comics.
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Lineation is not an accidental gesture. For the poet, whether seasoned or beginning, knowing how and where to end a line can often be mysterious. For readers, it is sometimes considered a matter of whimsy.
Can lineation be an act of rebellion, and if so, against what and whom?
We will consider the poem’s shape, lineation, and what happens when a poet presses against, subverts, or altogether disregards the accepted “rules” of formal lineation as a necessary act of dissent––an act that allows the poem to fall, break open, and breathe across the field of the page. We’ll read some examples of poems together and discuss how poets, particularly those who exist on the edges of society, unwind both form and speaking in terms of language, narrative, and theme. Of course, we will write together, too, experimenting with our own impulse to unwind the line, and ask ourselves, why? Please bring something to write on and with, as well as a favorite poem you have (yours or another’s) that experiments with lineation. Mostly, come to have fun and unwind a bit in the process.
