Poetry: Getting Unstuck

Member price: $22

Instructor: David Ruekberg

Writer’s Block: Is there such a thing? William Stafford’s solution was to ignore “high standards” and “get into action.” Expecting every piece of writing to say it all creates pressure. Exercising your writing muscles every day, however, can help prepare you for the moment when the big piece needs to be lifted into life. In this class, we’ll explore ways to keep moving through the doldrums, including journaling, art, music, news, supermarket chatter, or just fooling around. Criticism—especially from the worst critic of all, the self—will be banished in a kind but firm manner. We’ll spend a little time trying out some tricks to get unstuck, produce a piece of writing, and go home with strategies for breaking the block.

Recommended Bibliography:
Stafford, William. A Way of Writing. Writing the Australian Crawl. Poets on Poetry. U Michigan, Ann Arbor. 1998.
Also online: Stafford, William. A Way of Writing. Stafford’s “A Way of Writing”, University of Arkansas: Little Rock, https://ualr.edu/rmburns/rb/staffort.html

David Ruekberg‘s first collection of poems, Where Is the River Called Pishon?, was published by Kelsay Books in 2018. His second book is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press in 2021. He holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College, and enjoyed a residency at Jentel Arts in Wyoming. Read about his poetry at https://poetry.ruekberg.com.