Dear Sharpener readers:
Thank you for your engagement with The Sharpener. Thank you for your emails and comments about the poems I send. When I read your comments, it helps me to know that I’m on the right path—it reminds me that poetry matters, and that there are people who are thinking through poetry.
In that spirit, I’d like to share some news about my upcoming activities—my new book, readings, and new classes.
Today in the Taxi
Today in the Taxi is now up on the Tupelo Press website. The book will be released on April 1. Here’s a glimpse of the cover, just in from the publisher. I’m happy they were able to get permission to use Saul Steinberg’s “Bleecker Street” (1970), which shows the wilderness and unpredictability of New York City’s landscape.
Readings
It’s hard to book a book tour in the pandemic, but I’m booking as many readings as I can. If you’d like to host a reading or discussion of the book, please email me—I’d love to collaborate.
January 29—I’ll be on Boise Public Radio with Allison Benis White, Traci Brimhall, and Sam Taylor. I’ll share a link on social media closer to the date.
March 24—Reading at AWP Philadelphia with Kristin Bock. I’ll also be appearing on a panel on Radical Jewish Labor Poetry with Allison Pitnii Davis, Dan Alter, Joshua Gottlieb-Miller, and Joy Katz.
April 13—I’m reading at Hudson Valley Writers Center (on Zoom) with Adrian Matejka and Roger Reeves. Adrian Matejka is one of my oldest and closest friends. We were undergraduates together at Indiana University in Bloomington. Roger Reeves’s poem “Domestic Violence” is a powerhouse melting the wallpaper.
April 20—Ossining Public Library. Everybody should love their local public library and this one is especially lovable. Again, I’ll post more details when they’re available.
June 2—Michael Mercurio has invited me to read at What The Universe Is with Tommye Blount. Tommye Blount’s poems are vulnerable, raw and real.
Classes
January 20-February 24—Franz Kafka’s Insights into the 21st Century. This six-week course will be about the life and writing of Franz Kafka (1883-1924). We will read selections of his work to more fully understand Kafka’s world, his writing, his thinking, and what we can learn from his fiction for our own writing. We will focus on the most important years of his life and the culture of Prague during 1910-1915, examining his family, his work, psychological development, fascination with Zionism, engagement to Felice Bauer, and his illness.
I have two more classes at Hudson Valley Writing Center this spring. The links aren’t up yet, but email me if you’d like to be notified when registration opens.
March 3-April 7—Literature of Prisons. This course will examine the literature of prisons: literature which comes from, witnesses, records, or imagines the experience of incarceration.
April 21-May 26—Poetry as Thought. Stanley Kunitz said that writing poetry is one of the hardest, most life-affirming things a person can do. Taken seriously, it is not a specific repertoire or academic exercise, but a way of life.
The mission of this course is to better understand poetry as a process—as a verb—rather than a product.
Most writing problems are thinking problems. Poetry—both reading it and writing it—is the best way I know to sharpen my thinking. In this class we will spend six weeks looking at the ways that poetry can sharpen our thinking. Each week we’ll focus on a set of specific topics. Our class discussions will be supported by readings and writing prompts that you’ll complete before each meeting.
This is not a classic “writing workshop” where everyone goes around the room criticizing each other’s work. I believe this method to be harmful and unrewarding. Instead, I will stake out the challenges that every poet faces, and will ask you to engage with them through reading, reflection, and writing prompts. I will ask you to keep a process journal, but I won’t ask you to share what you write there.
Thank you for your continued enthusiasm and attention to my work. I believe that everyone can read and write poetry better. I’m always happy to help you defy and make reality with your poems.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Sean
Hello - your email link (I'm interested in Poetry of Thought) is only taking me to gmail, not to an address. How should I email you?
Congratulations on Today in the Taxi! I hope it will come to me by way of my subscription with Tupelo. If not, I will know where to find it.