Poetry as Sacred Attention

In this class, you’ll expand and strengthen your understanding and appreciation for poetry, and get tools to write with more attention, precision, intuition, and connection.

The etymology of “sacred” comes from “consecrated, dedicated”; poetry asks us to slow down, to pay attention, and to notice the relationship between words, objects, feelings, people, and the natural world–this itself is a form of consecration and dedication.

We’ll carefully look at poems by such writers as Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mary Oliver, Joy Harjo, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Camille Dungy.

Through close readings, we’ll discover new techniques to bring to our own poems. We’ll discuss craft, structure, word choice, and the music of a poem.

We’ll also discuss and practice techniques to come into a greater state of intuition and openness to receive the poems that want to come through us. We’ll do some short meditations and very gentle movement to integrate more fully the wisdom of the right and left brain, the analytical and intuitive selves, mind, body, and spirit.

The class is designed for people of every (and also no particular) spiritual affiliation as we explore the ways in which a poem itself can be the site of a contemplative, reverential, and transformative experience.

There will be time to read, write, and share poetry, as well as time for discussion, and question and answers.

You’ll leave the class with greater connection to your own unique powers as a poet, a revived love of and dedication to the practice of reading and writing poetry, and new tools to write more successful, alive, effective poetry.

Learning and Writing Goals

By the end of this webinar, you will have learned:

• how to pay greater attention to reading–and writing–a poem
• how this very act of attention leads to more alive and transformative writing
• the connection between a spiritual practice (or awareness) and poetry writing
• how your own writing fits into a tradition of sacred poetry
• how to integrate other contemplative practices with the writing of poetry
• new crafts and technique ideas for writing a poem
• how to tap into your inspiration and purpose as a poet

Webinar Schedule

This webinar will meet from 7:00-9:30 P.M. U.S. Eastern Time. It will be recorded for any student who cannot attend live. 

This webinar includes the following:

• 10 minutes: Introduction to poetry and the sacred; student introductions.
• 30 minutes: careful, attentive reading and study of techniques of a poem by one of the following poets as Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mary Oliver, Joy Harjo, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Camille Dungy.
• 30 minutes: Meditative practice and writing time–prompts taken from close readings of poem studied.
• 20 minutes: sharing work, question and answer, discussion
• 20 minutes: careful, attentive reading and study of techniques of one or two poems by poets such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mary Oliver, Joy Harjo, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Camille Dungy.
• 20 minutes: Meditative practice and writing time–prompts taken from close readings of poem studied.
• 20 minutes: final sharing, conversation question and answer period

Expect in-depth instruction and lively discussion.

Student Comments