Tuesdays, July 15th and 29th, 2025, 5:00PM - 7:00PM in the Poetry Center's Alumni Room.
How are maps like poems and poems like maps? The second part of this question interests me most. In this two-session, generative class, we'll focus on memory and place and the ways we construct poems in relation to internal and external cartographies. We'll start by reading "map" poems by artist-poets such as Craig Santos-Perez, Naomi Shihab Nye, Douglas Kearney, Evie Schockley, and Joanna Diaz, then generating our own with a series of curated prompts so that we leave each session with new material and ideas for poetic "mapping" practices. We'll also explore the map as a visual form for the poem, viewing work by contemporary artists working within this genre (e.g. Brendan Lorber, Lisa Muth, and more). With these visual examples, materials, and templates and ink provided, we'll try our hand at creating a poetry map (or two) of our own using text and fragments from new work generated in class. Come ready to write, play, and experiment. Open to writers and visual artists of all levels of experience.
Thursdays, August 7th, 14th and 21st, 5:00PM - 7:00PM in the Poetry Center's Alumni Room.
English author Jane Austen once wrote “[People] themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them forever.” The same can be said of a neighborhood setting. Whether you live in Barrio Hollywood, Cat Foothills, Menlo Park, South Tucson or Thunderbird Heights, Tucson and its neighborhoods are ever evolving and thus, rich sources for writing.
In this 3-week class we’ll pay close attention to Tucson, its sounds, sights, tastes, textures, and scents. We will bring our current and past neighborhoods to life through a combination of generative writing prompts, readings and discussion. We’ll capture memories connecting us to the Old Pueblo and translate these experiences through poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. Readings will include work by writers who have written about Tucson and its environs such as poets Ofelia Zepeda, Mari Herreras and Mark Doty. Nonfiction examples will include excerpts by Melanie Martinez, Lydia Otero, and Linda Ronstadt (yes, that Linda Ronstadt). Fiction will be sourced from former Tucson residents Jamie Quatro, Mark Jude Poirier and Chicano literary pioneer Mario Suarez. Tours will include short walks in and around our creative neighborhood, the Poetry Center, and a free trolley ride through downtown. When we’re not touring, we’ll read a variety of texts including literature, movie clips and music related to the Old Pueblo to engage our senses. In this multi-genre course, students will focus on starting and finishing a first draft of a creative piece including each week: a poem, an essay, and a flash fiction piece. Students will choose one of these drafts to polish in a final revision. We’ll share our versions of Tucson with each other and in the process learn what the Pueblo Viejo means to each of us.