Sagacious Syllabics: A Poetry Workshop with Lory Bedikian

As poets, we think we are experiencing writer's block when really it is just that we have too much material that needs control, form and measure. In this workshop we will consider what it means, looks and sounds like to write in syllabics or to compose syllabic verse (s.v.). We'll look at the question of can these poems be viewed as verse at all? We'll look at what the New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics has to offer — how Robert Bridges, Marianne Moore, Dylan Thomas are often the examples given for this form, however Moore kicks poetic behind in s.v. Specifically, we will analyze poems from Marilyn Hacker's fantastic collection Names, which is mainly constructed in syllabics (alongside ghazals). We'll discuss how writing in syllabics can assist us greatly when we feel stuck, however we need to be aware of the dangers of using this device and losing musicality of the line, etc. We need to use the form as a guide, but then make sure to adjust the pattern when it's significant, strategic, etc. Beginning with smaller exercises, we'll do our best to patch it together and exit with a working draft written with syllables leading the way!

Lory Bedikian’s collection The Book of Lamenting won the Philip Levine Prize and her forthcoming book Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body won the 2023 Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize, forthcoming September, 2024 from the University of Nebraska Press. Several of Bedikian’s poems received the First Prize Award in the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry as part of the 2022 Nimrod Literary Awards. Her work is published in Miramar, Tin House, The Los Angeles Review, Northwest Review, BOULEVARD, The Adroit Journal, Literary Matters, Orion, wildness, and was featured on Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound podcast. Her poem “The Mechanic,” is included in the anthology Border Lines: Poems of Migration, KNOPF, 2020. Bedikian’s manuscript-in-progress received a 2021 grant from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. New work is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Guesthouse and Massachusetts Review’s “Revisiting WOMAN: An Issue, 50 Years Later.” Bedikian earned an MFA from the University of Oregon. She teaches poetry workshops in Los Angeles.

Masks are encouraged while inside our center.

One scholarship will be awarded to a QTPOC/BIPOC L.A.-residing individual who would like to join but does not have the means to do so. Please email us if interested at [email protected].

Workshop attendees are expected to participate in a respectful, constructive, and considerate manner. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our workshops, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow participants, or facilitator.

Host or Publisher Beyond Baroque Literary | Arts Center