Poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers alike are all invited to consider the power of the English sentence–specifically, in pushing its boundaries–in this one-week intensive workshop. You will read across genres to discover masters of linguistic craft and learn to perform grammatical analysis for the sake of better serving the imagination.

This one-week intensive invites both poets and prose writers to consider more closely the power of pushing out the boundaries of the English sentence. Reading, across genres, sentences by masters of the ecstatic–James Agee, Gwendolyn Brooks, Cormac McCarthy, Emily Dickinson, Ross Gay, Halldór Laxness, Melville, Toni Morrison, Nabokov, Gerald Stern, C.K. Williams, Joy Williams–we will combine linguistic and creative craft study, learning to perform grammatical analysis for the sake of better serving the imagination. We will also “practice our scales,” daily drafting, redrafting, and workshopping our own sentences as we learn to experiment with the expectations established by syntax. Our week will culminate in one-on-one video call conferences.