OPN Scheduled Workshops
Workshops / Scheduled Special Events
Work Poetry: Using our jobs as source material
with
OPN Board Member Patrick Dixon
with
OPN Board Member Patrick Dixon
To register, please email [email protected].
If you are not a subscriber/member, please join OPN for one year before registering.
If you are not a subscriber/member, please join OPN for one year before registering.
Past Workshops
Demystifying the Line Break
OPN ALPHABET SOUP WITH SANDY YANNONE OPN
Join us Saturday, September 27th from 1-3pm, in room 200 of The Olympia Center,
222 Columbia St., Olympia
for an OPN Workshop
Alphabet Soup: Writing the Abecedarian
Join Olympia Poetry Network co-host of Last Tuesdays with Sandy and Thomas, former Evergreen Writing Center Director, and current Old Saybrook, CT's second poet laureate Sandy Yannone as she guides us through the crafting of one of the most fun forms in contemporary poetry, the Abecedarian! Learn how using this alphabet form can support you in unlocking narratives and lyrics you’ve longed to write. No experience necessary. Examples provided.
____________________________
Sandra Yannone, Poet Laureate of Old Saybrook, CT, is author of The Glass Studio (2024) and Boats for Women (2019) both with Salmon Poetry in Co. Clare, Ireland. Her writings appear in print and online in Ploughshares, Poetry Ireland Review, The Gay and Lesbian Review, and Women’s Review of Books, among others. She is co-editor of Unsinkable: Poetry Inspired by the Titanic, forthcoming from Salmon in April, 2026. She co-hosts three online reading series, including Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry and Last Tuesdays with Sandy and Thomas with the Olympia Poetry Network.
222 Columbia St., Olympia
for an OPN Workshop
Alphabet Soup: Writing the Abecedarian
Join Olympia Poetry Network co-host of Last Tuesdays with Sandy and Thomas, former Evergreen Writing Center Director, and current Old Saybrook, CT's second poet laureate Sandy Yannone as she guides us through the crafting of one of the most fun forms in contemporary poetry, the Abecedarian! Learn how using this alphabet form can support you in unlocking narratives and lyrics you’ve longed to write. No experience necessary. Examples provided.
____________________________
Sandra Yannone, Poet Laureate of Old Saybrook, CT, is author of The Glass Studio (2024) and Boats for Women (2019) both with Salmon Poetry in Co. Clare, Ireland. Her writings appear in print and online in Ploughshares, Poetry Ireland Review, The Gay and Lesbian Review, and Women’s Review of Books, among others. She is co-editor of Unsinkable: Poetry Inspired by the Titanic, forthcoming from Salmon in April, 2026. She co-hosts three online reading series, including Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry and Last Tuesdays with Sandy and Thomas with the Olympia Poetry Network.
PAST WORKSHOPS
OPN A Special Critique Workshop OPN
On Saturday, August 2, from 1:00 pm. to 3:00 p.m. at the Olympia Center (222 Columbia Street) OPN board members Pat Dixon and Chris Dahl will share their expertise with the first 15 people to sign up. The plan is to read and discuss as many poems as possible in that time period. The goal is to develop a set of portable principles that all participants can use.
But wait, there’s more! Since there are no guarantees they’ll get to everyone’s work in the discussion session, both Pat and Chris have agreed to write a set of notes for each poem to be returned to the individual authors.
We will begin accepting applications on July 1 on our website Olympiapoetrynetwork.org, with a deadline of no later than midnight, July 20th, requesting from each participant a one-page poem that needs work. The leaders ask that when you choose a poem for submittal, that you hold off on those brand-new ‘baby’ poems, which every author is inclined to be defensive about. Nor would you get much from the session if you sent a poem that you felt was done. We are looking for poems that are at the stage where you can see they have problems but don’t know where to take them. They need to be malleable enough that you can work on them.
Please send as an attachment via our email address in Word—if you use a Mac, please use the option to save as a Word document. Also, include your name on the poem. The fee will be $20 for subscribers (members) and $30 for non-subscribers. Seats should go fast, so sign up as soon as possible. Make this a productive poetry summer! Once you have paid, please send your one page poem with your name on it and in the filename ex.: Dixon_OPN _submission.doc or docx.
But wait, there’s more! Since there are no guarantees they’ll get to everyone’s work in the discussion session, both Pat and Chris have agreed to write a set of notes for each poem to be returned to the individual authors.
We will begin accepting applications on July 1 on our website Olympiapoetrynetwork.org, with a deadline of no later than midnight, July 20th, requesting from each participant a one-page poem that needs work. The leaders ask that when you choose a poem for submittal, that you hold off on those brand-new ‘baby’ poems, which every author is inclined to be defensive about. Nor would you get much from the session if you sent a poem that you felt was done. We are looking for poems that are at the stage where you can see they have problems but don’t know where to take them. They need to be malleable enough that you can work on them.
Please send as an attachment via our email address in Word—if you use a Mac, please use the option to save as a Word document. Also, include your name on the poem. The fee will be $20 for subscribers (members) and $30 for non-subscribers. Seats should go fast, so sign up as soon as possible. Make this a productive poetry summer! Once you have paid, please send your one page poem with your name on it and in the filename ex.: Dixon_OPN _submission.doc or docx.
Click to set custom HTML
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.
Poetry October 18th, 2023, 2:00-4:00pm
Lifelines: Writing Poetry from Life Experience
with Ryler Dustin
15 person limit
Lifelines: Writing Poetry from Life Experience
with Ryler Dustin
15 person limit
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
Love & Sex & Poetry
with
Suzanne Simons
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.
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"
______________________
a critique workshop with award-winning Oregon poet
CLEMENS STARCK
– scroll down to register –
_______________
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)
______________________
a critique workshop with award-winning Oregon poet
CLEMENS STARCK
– scroll down to register –
_______________
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)
SADY SPARKS, 2nd Olympia Poet Laureate
Oct. 8th, Tuesday, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Olympia Community Center,
222 Columbia St. NW, Olympia.
Oct. 8th, Tuesday, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Olympia Community Center,
222 Columbia St. NW, Olympia.
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.
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
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.
|
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|