Grackle image by Claire Valtour.
Professor, critic and poet Matthew Bevis writes, “Whatever else they are, lyrics are invitations to listen to sounds we can’t quite know.” Over a decade ago, I wrote a letter to Sylvia Plath, along with writing my own version of her poem “Ariel”. Back then, I was trying to argue what I felt lyric poetry was. I argued that lyric attempted to uncover an emotional place parallel to and outside of time and death. And once’s attempt to achieve this place could destroy you. I used to think of the lyric as a smothering space, short and intense. While I believe these attributes still do carry a lot of weight in lyric poetry, I believe contemporary lyric dares to push and challenge what we view as the lyric and therefore brings it more to life. In the course of this workshop, we will define lyric poetry, potentially multiple times as a way to capture the multitude of ways people use and view the lyric, read articles and watch lectures on lyric poetry, and attempt to write lyric poems ourselves. In this workshop, we will examine the work of classic lyric poets like Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, but we will also read the work of contemporary poets who each have their own take on the lyric. Some of the contemporary poets we will read are Terrance Hayes, Natalie Diaz, Roger Reeves, Justin Philip Reed, Rickey Laurentiis, and more.
Joshua Burton is a poet and educator from Houston, TX and received his MFA in poetry at Syracuse University. He is a 2019 Tin House Winter Workshop Scholar, 2019 Juniper Summer Writing Institute scholarship winner, 2019 Center for African American Poetry and Poetics fellowship finalist, received the Honorable Mention for the 2018 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize, 2020 Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing finalist, and a 2023 Elizabeth George Foundation grant recipient. His work can be found in Mississippi Review, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Conduit, TriQuarterly, Black Warrior Review, Grist, and Indiana Review. His chapbook Fracture Anthology is currently out with Ethel and his debut poetry collection Grace Engine is out with the University of Wisconsin Press.
