RETREATS AND WORKSHOPS - 2010

Poetry Writing Retreat at Honeymoon Bay Lodge and Retreat Centre
Located on Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island.
January 6 - 9, 2011

This retreat is four days of writing under the guidance and encouragement of Patrick Lane. He is not only one of the great writers of his generation, he is also one of the great teachers of poetry. Below is the course outline that will result in the daily writing of poetry. Please remember, this is a WRITING RETREAT, not a lecture course, and not a traditional workshop. Through a series of writing exercises participants are asked to explore different aspects of poetry by pushing at the traditional boundaries of both form and content.

Suggestion and Significance

The history of poetry is the history of implications. A word can lend itself to another through an emotional field where what is being said has implications beyond itself, the connotations and denotations creating many possible meanings. This course will explore the implications offered by both suggestion and significance. We will learn how to say one thing and mean another. We will learn that what we leave out of a poem is often as important as what we put into it. We will learn how to respect our readers and our listeners by not giving them an easy way out of emotional, psychological, and intellectual experiences. Poets such as Tomas Transtromer, Robert Hass, George Trakl, Cesar Vallejo, Charles Simic, and so many others over the past century have offered us new and different ways of experiencing words. More than anything we will be writing in a safe place where we can risk the words weíve always known.

The cost is $600.00 for single occupancy - room and meals included at a remarkable facility on beautiful Lake Cowichan a little north and west of Victoria, B.C.

Contact Richard Osler.

ISLAND MOUNTAIN ARTS
A Workshop With Patrick Lane - July 22 to 25, 2010
The Story We Need to Sing.

This course in writing anecdotal lyrics and narrative poems will be explored through daily exercises and discussions on poetry and poetry techniques with master poet Patrick Lane. This will be a "writing" course and not a workshop. All the poets and poems produced here will be encouraged from start to finish and then read aloud each day in an open, safe atmosphere. Writers will show their work to each other individually as well as to Patrick. The progress of the poem with ideas and suggestions arising from the free exchange of experience and knowledge will be invaluable to each writer. Patrick has been a writer-in-residence at many institutions as well as teaching the art of poetry for forty years, the last ten years privately at secluded retreats across North America. He has been called the best poet of his generation and his teaching has been lauded from coast to coast. New and emerging writers are strongly urged to apply.

Island Mountain School of the Arts, Wells/Barkerville, B.C.
Fee: $449.00 + GST (if paid by June 1st), $499.00 + GST(after June 1st).
Accommodations are not included.
For more info visit www.imarts.com or email or call 1-800-442-2787

March & November each year: Master Poetry Class
The Juan de Fuca Retreats – Sooke, B.C.

A privately-run, four day live-in Master Class poetry retreat in a private facility on Juan de Fuca Strait. Each retreat is unique in its approach. After twenty-five retreats and ten years of study, participants have gone on to publish numerous books and have been the recipients of numerous awards and prizes. The quiet facility is above a beautiful beach with views of the Olympic Mountains across the strait in Washington State. This is a “writing retreat” where new work is encouraged through exercises and discussions led by master poet, Patrick Lane. It is not a traditional workshop, although all work done at the retreat is read and discussed during a free exchange of poems. Writers with some publication in magazines or with collections of poetry already published are encouraged to apply. This is not a class for beginners.

All inclusive cost is $600.00.

For information contact Wendy Morton at 1-250-642-3542 or by email