Poetry Writing Workshop with Doug Knowlton

Name: Poetry Writing Workshop with Doug Knowlton
Start: 2026-07-01T12:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-07-29T14:00:00-04:00
Location: Bookstore1Sarasota

Schedule

Wed, 01 Jul, 2026 at 12:00 pm to Wed, 29 Jul, 2026 at 02:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Bookstore1Sarasota | Sarasota, FL

Explore the power of memory in poetry with Doug Knowlton in this five-session, five-week workshop at Bookstore1Sarasota.
About this Event

Haven't tried a poetry writing workshop yet? Here's your chance! This cohort is open to those who were not able to participate in our previous springtime workshop. Whether you're new to poetry or already published, everyone is welcome in this generative, supportive workshop. Based on our experience, the poetry workshop group process will enrich each participant's writing and listening skills. This year's focus: memory.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
Memories affect writing, whether recognized or not, and a conscious experience of this connection can make writing poems even more fulfilling. Remembrance has a way of feeding awe and wonder. Reaching into the forgotten extends creativity out to the edge of experience. With a combination of writing prompts, group discussion, and enlightening text by Gregory Orr, we will connect with (as Orr suggests) our personal writing threshold.
The workshop will meet in the loft of Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave., for five sessions from 12-2 p.m. on:
Wednesday, July 1
Wednesday, July 8
Wednesday, July 15
Wednesday, July 22
Wednesday, July 29
Registration is required. Workshop cost is $50, which includes all five sessions and a copy of Orr's Primer for Poets & Readers of Poetry.
If you attended this spring's poetry writing workshop, please feel free to register for September's workshop instead.

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR:
DOUG KNOWLTON has been writing poems and lyrics since the 1960s. He finds it especially fulfilling to encounter writers and readers who are awakening to poetry's potential.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry guides the writer toward a deeper understanding of how poetry can function in his or her life, while also introducing the art in an exciting new way. Using such poems as Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" and Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays," the Primer encourages writers to approach their "thresholds" - those places where disorder meets order, where shaping imagination can turn language into urgent and persuasive poems. It provides the poet with more than a dozen focused writing exercises and explains essential topics such as the personal and cultural threshold; the four forces that animate poetic language (naming, singing, saying, imagining); tactics of revision; ecstasy and engagement as motives for poetry; and how to locate and learn from our personal poetic forebears.
Event Photos