Poetry Workshop – The gift of the written word

The philosopher Gaston Bachelard tells us, “The words of the world want to make sentences,” so we may further ask the questions- “And what do the sentences want to make? What do our sentences want to make? Do they want to make essays? Do they want to make stories? Do they want to run away and become poems perhaps?

The gift of the written word is open to all poets and lovers of poetry ages 15 and up. This workshop is designed to encourage questions and to seek a conversation with poets, their poems, images and ideas as a means to unlocking our literary talent. This workshop is about finding voice and wings for the sentences that want to run away and become poems. There is tremendous talent within each and every one of us. This workshop will put us in
touch with all the literary genius in our midst.

We will write poems and possibly, stories, essays, plays or begin work on novels and maybe even epics, if our lines run away and ask to take those forms. We will read and critique works of world literature, seek dialog with authors great and small and find inspiration in their lives and works to unlock our hidden talents. We will close the workshop with gift giving. We will hold an open mic and gallery walk at the end of the workshop to share and display the fruits of our labor and give away our precious gifts of the written word to the world through a celebration of voice, vision and imagination.

Biography
Mukta has earned an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies such as Verse, Em Literary, Cipactli, Fourteen Hills, Hyphen Magazine, Laundry Pen, The Scribbler, Poetry Chain, Fulcrum, Bloodaxe book of contemporary Indian poets and Sixty Indian Poets edited by Jeet Thayil, Sahitya Akademi’s We Speak in Changing Languages, The Dance of the Peacock, Suvarnarekha and others. She is the recipient of the 2003 Audre Lorde creative writing award and an honorable mention for the Starcherone prize. She lives in Oakland, California where she is a school administrator. Formerly as a lecturer in English in India and presently as a well- respected educator based in the United States, Mukta has given talks and taught literature and creative writing courses as well as lead workshops in schools, colleges and at universities in both the United States and India.