Structure & Surprise

So, this is super-cool: poet Jay Deshpande will lead a craft lab focused on the poetic turn! This event will take place on Zoom on Sunday, May 23, 4-7 p.m. (Eastern). For a detailed description, including registration link, check out this webpage.

Readers of this blog might be very interested in this event, which seems closely aligned with the approach to the turn contained in Structure & Surprise: it’s interested in structure as “a critical third element” of poetry, in addition to form and content; it understands the sonnet’s volta as a crucial site for studying the turn; addressing the turn as a significant feature of a poem’s meaning making, it will use attention to turns to help participants better read and write poems.

Deshpande should be an excellent guide in this exploration of the turn. A number of his own poems deploy turns quite movingly. Two that are linked to on his website reveal speakers engaged in sensual acts–walking beneath a magnolia tree; slicing a kiwi–who then turn that experience into sensuous thought. Check them out:

“Sonnet written walking under the mess some magnolia made”

“Kiwi”

And then consider learning more from Jay Deshpande on May 23–!