F164. Slam, Veer, Hush, and Hook: On Ending Poems

Room 20 & 21, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
Friday, March 9, 2018
10:30 am to 11:45 am

 

Prompts, assignments, workshops, those snappy first lines—we’re awfully good at beginning poems. Ending a poem well is much harder. Our panel of esteemed poet-critics looks at varieties of closure and nonclosure in poems ranging across cultures, historical periods, and styles—and including their own work. What are the shopworn gestures, the easy or predicable endings, the clichés? How may we push harder toward the surprise and the rigorous originality of genuine poetry?


Participants

Moderator:

David Baker is a poet, critic, and editor whose recent books include Scavenger Loop (poems), Show Me Your Environment (essays), and Never-Ending Birds, winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. He is poetry editor of Kenyon Review and teaches at Denison University.

Linda Gregerson is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Prodigal, and two books of criticism. Among her honors are an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and the Kingsley Tufts Award. She is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan.

Stanley Plumly is the author of twelve books of poems, including, most recently, Against Sunset. His latest nonfiction book is The Immortal Evening: A Legendary Dinner with Keats, Wordsworth, and Lamb. He teaches at the University of Maryland.

Ann Townsend is a poet and essayist, and the author of The Coronary Garden, Dime Store Erotics, and Radiant Lyre: Essays on Lyric Poetry (with David Baker). She directs the creative writing program at Denison University; in 2009, she cofounded VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center