The real key to writing a memorable villanelle?  It lies in mastering the skill of repeating yourself—which is great news for poets.  Because every once in a while, a memorable phrase or sentence will spring to mind—something that’s so insightful, so fresh, that your Inner Poet suddenly starts asking: shouldn’t this little gem be transformed into a villanelle, so it can become the repeated refrain?

Maybe it should!  Participants in his two-session workshop will learn how to do just that, in two surprisingly easy steps.  First, just turn that brilliant zinger of yours into a rhymed couplet.  Then, simply drop it into the pre-fabricated framework of a villanelle (cheerfully supplied by your instructor), and there you are.  It’s much easier to accomplish than you think, because the intrinsic quirks and turns of the form itself will provide some unexpected pleasures and surprises.

So why not give it a shot?  It’s going to be intensive, it’s going to be fun, and you may find your poetry striding boldly into places where it’s never gone before.

This workshop is free but please register.

Part 1 - Thursday, June 16
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckcuqqrD8uHtRoYXznGGPW_MMOgIHeiDeW

Part 2 - Thursday, July 14
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEvf-CtqTwrHNxnSCv6ykljQbvX6_nRDnUk

Marilyn L. Taylor, the former Poet Laureate of the state of Wisconsin and the city of Milwaukee, is the author of eight collections of poetry, and editor of the anthology titled Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle.  She also co-edits two poetry journals,Third Wednesday and Verse-Virtual. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Able Muse, Measure, and The American Scholar, and it has won awards in a number of poetry competitions, including the Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Verse in Forms, and the 2021 “Better Than Starbucks” sonnet contest. A former Milwaukeean, she now lives in Madison, where she continues to present readings and independent workshops locally, statewide, and elsewhere.  Her new collection, Outside the Frame: New and Selected Poems, is now available from her website: www.mltpoet.com/books