Documentary Poetics with Grace Wilentz

Course Summary:

Documentary poetics, sometimes called ‘research-based’ poetics or docupoetry, combines primary source material with the art of writing poetry. In this course, we’ll begin with an introduction to the genre, before going deeper into its uses as a tool for poetic subversion. This includes the specific opportunities documentary poetics presents for unearthing hidden messages within a text and de-centring oppressive narratives. Together we will look at how documentary poetics brings history into dialogue with the present moment, before creating original poems through guided creative exercises.

Course Outline:

This course is open to all levels, from those keen to trying something new, to more experienced poets interested in working with cultural memory in their practice.

As part of this course, we will look at the work of poets including Reginald Dwayne Betts, Theresa Kyung Cha, A.M. Cousins, Marwa Helal, Gail McConnell, Sinead Morrissey, Claudia Rankine, Charles Reznikoff, Muriel Rukeyser, Solmaz Sharif and Layli Long Soldier.

After collaborative close reading and discussion of poems and their context, we will engage in creative exercises using news reports, testimonies, government records, archives, etc. to experiment with techniques used in documentary poetics.

Course Outcomes:

Participants will come away from this course with a knowledge of the history and rise of documentary poetics, a familiarity with poetic techniques and experience putting them into practice, as well as a set of original poems.

Grace Wilentz’s first collection, The Limit of Light (The Gallery Press, 2020), was named one of the best books of the year in The Irish Independent and The Irish Times. Her awards include a Next Generation Artist Award and a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon. She is currently Writer in Residence at Notre Dame in Dublin.

Booked out? To be added to the waiting list for this course, please email info@irishwriterscentre.ie.