Opening the Essay: A workshop and reading with poet, Jane Hirshfield December 5, 2009

Sat, Dec 5, Workshop: 4pm-5:30pm; Reading: 7pm-9pm

The California Institute of Integral Studies presents "Opening the Essay: A Workshop and Reading for Artists and Others" with poet, Jane Hirshfield.

About the Workshop: This brief workshop will explore essay writing as a tool of opening: a way to expand investigation, discovery, and understanding for those who may not ordinarily or primarily write in this form. The essay form has its roots in a word meaning "try," "trial," "test," and "weighing"; it is a way to sketch and stretch through into new and deepened realms. We'll look at how essays think, how to choose a subject, and the many possibilities inherent in the form.

Participants should bring paper, pen, and a first sentence and title from an essay (by someone else) that they admire.

Following the workshop, Jane Hirshfield will read from her work, beginning at 7pm.

Jane Hirshfield's work appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Orion, and five editions of The Best American Poetry, is the author of six prize-winning poetry collections, including After and Given Sugar, Given Salt, as well as a now classic book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. She has also edited and cotranslated several anthologies including Women in Praise of the Sacred: Forty-three Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women. In 2004 the Academy of American Poets honored her with the 70th Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement.

This event is sponsored by the Writing, Consciousness, and Creative Inquiry Department and the Public Programs Department at CIIS.

Official Website: http://www.ciis.edu/News_and_Events/Event_Calendar/Opening_the_Essay_.html