OLYMPIA POETRY NETWORK
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OPN Scheduled Workshops

Workshops / Scheduled Special Events



OPN     The Fall Workshop Series     OPN 

JANUARY 15, 2025 
SUZANNE EDISON
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MEMBERS PLEASE
EMAIL US AT [email protected]
TO SIGN UP FOR FREE

NON-MEMBERS PLEASE SCROLL DOWN
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OPN members attend for free. 
OPN members, please email us at [email protected] to sign up.

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Non-members: $20 (includes a one-year OPN membership).
Pay below and use the comment box to leave us a message that you want to attend.​



PAST WORKSHOPS
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3:00-4:30 p.m. October 16
Olympia Center, 222 Columbia Street
Downtown Olympia
Award-winning poet ​Gary Lilley- "Poetry of Place"
Limit: 20 people.


A generative workshop about creating a sense of place in poems for writers of all levels, using diction and syntax and Gregory Orr's Four Temperaments of Poetry: story, structure, imagination (images), and musicality.
Prepare to turn it loose and have a good time.



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Poetry October 18th, 2023, 2:00-4:00pm
Lifelines: Writing Poetry from Life Experience
with Ryler Dustin​
​15 person limit
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Ryler Dustin is the author of the poetry collection Heavy Lead Birdsong from Write Bloody Publishing. A native of Bellingham, Washington, he has received residencies from the Jack Kerouac Project of Orlando and the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, and he represented Seattle on the final stage of the Individual World Poetry Slam. His recent poems appear in outlets like The Colorado Review, American Life in Poetry, and The Massachusetts Review. 
Tuesday, February 11
Love & Sex & Poetry

with 
Suzanne Simons
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​OPN’s winter/spring workshop series opens with a valentine’s special on Tuesday, February 11 when Suzanne Simons leads a session titled “Love & Sex & Poetry.”  The workshop will be held at the Olympia Community Center, 222 Columbia St. NW from 7:00 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.  Put on your writing hat and head down to “explore love poems of various kinds, from sweet to silly to sensuous.”  Suzanne says that “We’ll consider poems by Khalil Gibran, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Bob Hickok, and others, and try our hands at new ways to craft love poems using fresh language and form.”  Come prepared to write.  The event is FREE but donations are appreciated.

About SUZANNE SIMONS:  Suzanne is a faculty member at The Evergreen State College where she teaches poetry and interdisciplinary studies.  Poetry helps her make sense of life by bringing beauty and order to chaos.  She is inspired by the rhythms of nature, the music of language, and the grace notes of the every day.

"HANDS ON" 
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a critique workshop with award-winning Oregon poet
CLEMENS STARCK
– ​scroll down to register –
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Limit 15 people


10:30am until 1:30pm, Thursday, Jan. 16 in Room 205 of The Olympia Center, 222 Columbia St. NW, Olympia
(bring a sack lunch)

This workshop follows a reading for OPN (open to the public) at New Traditions Cafe' the previous evening (6:00-8:00pm)


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SADY SPARKS, 2nd Olympia Poet Laureate
Oct. 8th, Tuesday, 
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm 
Olympia Community Center,
222 Columbia St. NW, Olympia.
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Join Olympia's Poet Laureate Sady Sparks as we explore sound, color, and the poetry in each moment. Sady uses erasure poems, prompts, stop watches, and markers to encourage poetry from the mundane. This is for those who love words, detest words, and don't know what to do with words. Bring your excitement, your dread, your teenager, your water bottle. LGBTQ+ friendly. Ages 10-110. 
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The Continuous Now: Generating Systems, Series, and Sequences of “Buttons”
​with Tristan Beach, Lecturer in English at Saint Martin's University
      7 to 9 pm
Olympia Community Center, 
 222 Columbia St NW, Olympia, WA 98501
 Sept. 10, Tuesday
As poets, we are often compelled to examine our relationships to language and our positions as observers of the ordinary world. In this generative hybrid poetry workshop, inspired by Dana Levin’s workshops on Poetry and the Unconscious, we will create sequences of prose/poems that embody and exemplify this questioning. Guided by Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, we will capture in language portraits—impressions and associations—the objects, activities, and ideas that populate our daily lives, crafting our own “buttons” in what Stein calls the “continuous now.” To help generate these “buttons,” we will replicate diagrams, litanies, random Tarot card draws, the physical space of the workshop, the human anatomy, whatever is in your closet, a screenshot of phone apps, and other real systems, series, and sequences of objects. We invite you to bring receipts, grocery lists, a snapshot of your car’s dashboard, or whatever composition strikes a creative spark in you. Join us in creating odd, wonderful artifacts of language.
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Tristan Beach has taught English across China from 2014 to 2017. Before that, he was a long-time editor for Portland-based literary journal Conium Review and was involved with various other literary journals and presses, including Copper Canyon Press, Coffee House Press, Pitkin Review, and Clockhouse. His poems, prose, and criticism appear in Pif Magazine, Shantih, rawboned, The Writer in the World, and Pitkin Review. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and currently teaches English at Saint Martin’s University; he is also a facilitator for Writing on Water and the poetry editor for Pif Magazine.

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​DONNING A MASK: ​THE PERSONA POEM
A Workshop with Peter Ludwin

Tuesday, April 9, 2019
 7 -9 pm
Olympia Community Center
downtown Olympia
We'll go over what a persona poem is, the various attributes and characteristics of a persona poem, read some outstanding examples, write one ourselves and then read them to the group.
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WRITING WITH THE GREEKS
A Workshop with OPN Board Member
​Nathalie Kuroiwa-Lewis

Tuesday, March 12, 2019
7 - 9 pm
Olympia Community Center
​downtown Olympia
Join me in an exciting journey writing with the Greeks.  Here we'll study connections between Carl Jung's theory of archetype and Greek myth in poetry.  We'll see how poets such as Lucille Clifton and Lucia Perillo, among others, play with perspective in Greek myth when they write their poems. We'll use prompts to generate new poems with Greek myth. Participants are encouraged to bring their favorite myths with them.
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​
design @ 2019 Debi Bodett 


MONTHLY READINGS
In person at New Traditions
5th and Water Street, downtown Olympia, WA
3rd Wednesdays / 6:00pm - 8:00pm PST
Open Mic sign ups begin at 5:30pm

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  • About
  • Join OPN
  • Board of Directors
  • Events
    • Featured Readings
    • OPN Scheduled Workshops
    • Last Tuesdays with Sandy
    • Special Events >
      • Laureate LoveFest 2021
      • LaureateFest 2019
  • Poetry/ Publications
    • Featured Poems
    • Current Event Poems
    • Monthly Exercise
    • Essays
    • OPN Member Publications
    • Links
  • Photos & Videos
  • Contact
  • April Prompts