“Come, see
real flowers
of this painful world.” – Basho

It can be difficult, in these trying times, to make space for praise, or to notice the occasion for it. It is easy to believe it, even, selfish. (“Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home,” writes Szymborska.) But to find in dark times things to praise is not to be ignorant of suffering—it is to, despite our suffering, survive. In this generative workshop, we will look to poems by poets like Lucille Clifton, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Franz Wright, Pablo Neruda, Joy Harjo, and Gregory Orr that praise the erotic, the mundane, the difficult, and the divine as we write our own (fully, painfully) aware poems of celebration and ecstasy.