Poetry University #1: "To Be of Use," Prosody and Prompts, The Poet's Manifesto, and Substack Tips
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Welcome to Poetry University. I’m Kimberly Phinney, English professor, published poet and writer, editor and publisher, and founder of www.TheWayBack2Ourselves.com.
Poetry University is a monthly community where paid subscribers of My Way Back come together to create belonging and learn about poetry, craft, publishing, platform, the artist’s soul, and so much more. With my long teaching career (20 years, if you’re asking…), two degrees in English, and doctoral candidacy in Community Care and Counseling, Poetry University is a unique blend of academic excellence and deep soul care for the faithful creative.
If you’d like to join us, just become a paid subscriber, and Poetry University is my FREE gift to you. Monthly subscriptions are only $6 a month for my essays and poetry, but you are also helping to crowd fund this course, which would be at least $1200 per person through other venues. Your paid subscription to My Way Back includes the live monthly meetups and these recorded postings with review materials.
POETRY UNIVERSITY CLASS #1
This month, we dove deep into the poem “To Be of Use” by Marge Piercy (1982).
We learned about several distinctive elements of prosody, which is the study of meter, rhyme, and other types of accents and sounds in poetry.
We covered several beautiful generative prompts inspired by “To Be of Use.”
We deep dived into The Poet’s Manifesto, unpacking the merits of curiosity and nuance and specific ways to embody them in our daily rhythms.
We learned about authentic ways to connect and grow on Substack.
We connected over student questions and discussion points.
And we assigned homework challenges and picked our second Poetry University class date, which is June 30th at 8:30 pm EST (live on Zoom and recorded).
I am so grateful to great poets and writers for attending, like , , , , , and many more.
HERE’S THE RECORDING OF POETRY UNIVERSITY CLASS #1 (WITH NOTES AND INSIGHTS):