Poetry Masterclass

POETRY WORKSHOP MASTER CLASS
Friday, October 9 - Wednesday, October 14, '09, 2.30pm to 6.30pm,
at Open Space

Open Space invites participation in a 6-day workshop which will help participants deepen their understanding of the techniques and art of poetry writing and reading.The workshop will be conducted by poet and novelist Priya Sarukkai Chabria. Her publications include the novels Generation 14 (Penguin-Zubaan, 2008) and The Other Garden (Rupa&Co, 1995), poetry collections Not Springtime Yet (HarperCollins, 2008) and Dialogue and Other Poems (Indian Academy of Literature, 2005, reprint 2006). The anthologies All Poetry is Protest (2006) and 50 Poets 50Poems (2007) are edited by her. She is currently translating the hymns of 8th century Tamil poet, Aandaal. A seminar-cum-utsav The Image of the Writer in Literature was curated by her in 2007 for the Indian Academy of Literature and more recently, she curated for them the literary salon, The Self and Its Translations. Priya Sarukkai Chabria has collaborated with artists from classical dance, film and painting. Her work is published in various journals and websites in Europe, the US and India. She was invited to participate in the writers' salon, Worlds 2009: The Creative Writer by the New Writing Partnership, UEA, UK. Aim:

This is conceived as a demanding and challenging workshop for both teacher and student. Rather than settle for a how-to-write-a-good-poem workshop that offers notes on types of poems and operates largely on students passively receiving inputs from the teacher, this is primarily meant to be a conduit to the student’s creativity, encouraging him/her to take creative leaps across restricting boundaries.
The aim is to facilitate students to know how their minds work on creative problems, how to tackle the exploration of their subject, arrive at ideas and work towards a form.
The workshop will cover five days during which:
Participants will be introduced to the poetry of different cultures and poets to examine the techniques and methods of idea exploration and elaboration.
Rather than how-to reading, participants will be encouraged to read actively and ask creative questions that should feed into their own writing.
The workshop will be a space in which participants experiment and innovate, debate and discuss, free of market pressures so that their innate creativity can be encouraged to flow freely.
Students will be encouraged to interact with each other as well as spend time by themselves, taking writing exercises that will later be discussed in class.
Students will, over the days of the workshop, be encouraged to work on their own poem that will periodically be reviewed.
Each participant will be given some individual time by the teacher where their work is discussed.

Structure:
Rather than a fixed structure that will operate as per a timetable, it is advantageous for participants to follow a more fluid model. Therefore, the workshop is conceived as an interactive mode of dialogue, discussion, critiquing and writing exercises which should lead to the near completion of a poem by every participant as well as enabling each one to think about poetic ideas and constructions.Sessions will be in a creative mode. However, on each day there should be a period allocated to:
mandatory reading of a select poem
a teaching session
a group discussion on critiquing poems
working on writing exercises (this will be a substantial part of each day)
working by oneself on his/her poem
articulation and presentation

The theme of the poetry workshop is Relationships: Social, environmental, interpersonal, with one’s self, with language et al.

Application Criteria:
Those who have faith that something will emerge from the play of language and sound and are prepared to experiment with words and are passionate about writing are invited to apply.
Participants should be emerging poets who will be selected on the basis of the poems they send in prior to the workshop. All applications (CVs) must be accompanied by four original poems by the applicant and mailed to Priya Sarukkai Chabria at surpriya34@gmail.com and cced to events@openspaceindia.org with the subject: Poetry workshop master class. All applications should be mailed before Wednesday, September 30th, 09.
Participants short-listed for the workshop are required to pay a fee of Rs 2000/- at Open Space by October 4th, ’09 anytime between 11am and 5.30pm. The workshop fee includes a membership for the applicant to the Open Space library for a period of one year from the date of registration. The library offers over 2,000 books, 400 documentaries and 200 world cinema classics (an additional deposit amount of Rs 500 is payable for library membership but this is refundable at any time).

For further information on any of these programs call Openspace at 25457371
Open Space encourages debate and action on rights, justice and sustainable development.Open Space is an initiative of the Centre for Communication & Development Studies (CCDS) aimed at strengthening civil society and mobilising citizen’s action.