Meet Sage Cohen-- she'll be teaching one of Absolute Write's newest classes, Poetry for the People, beginning February 13.  Sage Cohen is an award-winning poet and essayist whose work appears in more than 30 journals and anthologies including Poetry Flash, Oregon Literary Review, blueoregon.com and San Francisco Reader. In 2006, she won first prize in the Ghost Road Press poetry contest. Sage serves as Managing Editor of-- and a monthly columnist for-- Writers on the Rise, and writes a monthly personal essay column for Black Lamb. She holds a MA in creative writing from New York University where she was awarded a New York Times Foundation fellowship. Sage has taught poetry at universities, hospitals and writing conferences as well as online. Her poetry collection, Like the Heart, the World, was published in 2007. Sage is Principal of Sage Communications, the marketing communications firm she founded more than a decade ago.

From the title of your class, Poetry for the People, to your Poetry Reading Series at your local Barnes & Noble bookstore, it's clear that you live your art, making poetry a part of your life instead of what many might think of as a dusty, academic pursuit. What is it about poetry that you think might cause people to tend to shy away from it?

That's a great question-- one that I've been thinking about quite a bit lately. Yes, I think poetry can be a very vital force when we embrace it as a way of life. I suspect that many people who shy away from poetry have not had a proper introduction. Perhaps they've been instructed to experience poetry in a certain way that is not in harmony with who they are, or were told that they were wrong at some tender time in their development. Maybe they haven't been given permission-- or instruction-- to find their place in poetry, or to find its place in them. 

How does a poet go about starting a reading series? Are there any aspects of curating a series that you wish you'd known about previously?

The most important ingredient in launching a reading series is the passionate desire to do so! Administrative skills help, and so does being at least somewhat extroverted. Following are a few key steps that every curator should have on his or her to-do list:

Establish relationships 

Reading series are about community. If you don't have an existing writing community, start building one. Attend readings, workshops, conferences, lectures, poetry slams, writing groups-- whatever pleases you and brings you closer to like-minded literary types. I've even advertised for readers on Craigslist; that's how I met a few of the people who have been most pivotal in my Portland writing life.

Build it and they will come

Choose a regular meeting time. Line up readers for the first three events. Identify a venue that reflects the feeling of the event you want to host: a library, bar, corporate conference room, coffee shop could all work just fine. The two most important factors are that you feel comfortable in the space, and that the venue is pleased to have your event there.

Publicize

Here's a quickie timeline of to-do's:

1. Before you do anything else: make a media contact list of all literary arts editors at all city, town, and neighborhood newspapers and newsletters, radio stations, community e-mail lists, writing associations, etc.

2. Two months before each reading: gather bios from your readers. 

3. Six weeks before each reading: write a press release about the event and distribute it to your media list. 

4. A month before each reading, and then again a week before the reading, send an e-mail blast to your "reading series" list to invite them to the upcoming event.

5. A week before each reading: remind scheduled readers of the event logistics: time, place, reading order.

Grow your community

When you present great writers and make listeners feel welcome and comfortable, your community will gain momentum effortlessly. Always bring an e-mail sign-up sheet so you can bring new people into the fold. Over time, your series will take on a life of its own-- with readers referring other readers, and listeners bringing other listeners. 

Please tell us a bit about how your interest in poetry began.

Poetry just happened to me. At a very early age, I somehow stumbled into the ritual of writing poems as a means of digesting and making sense of my life experience. It was as automatic as breathing-- something I did to stay alive. It was many years before I developed any self-consciousness around the fact that I was actually writing poems. And then several more years before I engaged critically with the craft of poetry.  

How do you stay refreshed in your writing?

By day, I write marketing communications for corporate clients. On nights and weekends I write poetry, essays, feature articles, two monthly columns, free writing, songs, and whatever else moves me. The variety keeps me mentally engaged and helps me approach language from new vantage points. Whereas if I'm only writing poetry, sometimes I feel like I'm writing the same poem over and over again. 

Can you describe for us a few elements of a successful poem?

A successful poem reads as if it were cut from whole cloth. Its language, shape, sound, rhythms, and images seem to work effortlessly together to deliver a message or feeling or experience that leaves the reader in some way transformed.  

What's the toughest part of starting a new poem?

Most of the time, a poem arrives when I am busy doing something else. A first image, or first line, or title will materialize as I am walking the dogs or cleaning the stove. The toughest part, I guess, is making such moments a priority-- stopping whatever I'm doing to write that little puff of possibility down. And then, to borrow one of William Stafford's gems, I follow the golden thread and let the poem lead me wherever it wants to go.

On your website, you write, "Because I believe that telling the truth is the most important choice we can make in reclaiming our lives, I write." How do you reconcile telling your truth when it involves other friends, family members, or acquaintances?

Juicy question! I have so much to say on this topic, but I'll attempt to be concise here. Art transforms a literal moment into a figurative representation-- so even the most confessional poem can not be looked to as a factual accounting of a moment in time-- but rather about what that moment signifies. While other people are sometimes involved in the truths I choose to explore, my poems are not ABOUT other people. They are about my own experience, and what the other people may represent to me in that moment. I think the key phrase here is "telling MY truth." I trust in the integrity of this, and so far it has served me well. 

Please share with us a success story from one of your previous teaching experiences.

Paradoxically, I have found that when students engage in exercises that involve imitation of their favorite poets, they somehow get out of their own way enough to stumble into a voice that is more authentically their own. 

How can writers of fiction and nonfiction improve their craft through poetry?

At the Willamette Writers conference this August, I was intrigued to meet several writers of fiction and nonfiction who each described a similar process of starting their day writing a poem before launching into their "official" writing work of the day. This brings to mind three ways in which poetry can inform and influence other types of writing: as a cathartic release than can cleanse the emotional palate; as a point of entry into subject matter or material that is wanting further exploration; and as a means of fine-tuning our linguistic instruments to the nuance of every syllable and sound, phrase, and line. 

The October 2007 issue of Writer's Digest explores this issue in more depth through an interview with three of my favorite genre-benders: Diane Ackerman, Kim Addonizio and Naomi Shihab Nye. I encourage folks to learn from these author/poets how poetry can inform and inspire the writing of prose.

Sponsored links

Ring binders

 

Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer!

How to find a book publisher

Home

Text on this site Copyright © 1998-2007 Absolute Write, all rights reserved.
Please contact the authors if you'd like to reprint articles on this site.  All copyrights are retained by original authors.  And plagiarizers will be rounded up, handcuffed, and stuck into a very small and humid room wherein they must listen to Barney sing the "I Love You, You Love Me" song over and over again.

writers writing software