WORKSHOPS & EVENTS CALENDAR, 2016
Poetry is knowledge, salvation, power, abandonment. An operation capable of changing the world, poetic activity is revolutionary by nature; a spiritual exercise, it is a means of interior liberation. Poetry reveals this world; it creates another. -Octavio Paz
Click here to go to Events 2017
JANUARY
The Mind of Winter Springs Open! : A Poem-A-Day Poetry Writing Workshop
- Dates: Sunday, January 10 – Saturday, January 16
- Times: Daily, 12 noon – 2:30 pm, for One Week
- Location: Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
Description: This poetry-writing event is meant to help us create, as poet Robert Hass says, poems that are “stronger and truer than ever before.” We will meet each day to share poems written within the previous 24 hours. At our first meeting, you’ll be offered a series of prompts toward the creation of a new poem. After that, you’ll bring the first draft of a new poem to our workshop each day. At the end of each workshop you’ll be provided with a magic packet to draw from, if you wish, for the inspiration of your next poem. You will be free to use the suggestions from the packets in whatever way you wish, or not at all. You’ll be eligible for one 10 minute private session with Sawnie to discuss your poems. Writers at all levels of writing experience are welcome.
To register and/or for more information: CONTACT US
The Story Within the Story: Unleashing the Poem at the Center of Our Lives
- Dates: Monday, January 18 – March 4th
- Times: an online workshop
- Host: Sponsored by the Rananim Project: an online writers’ community of the University of New Mexico, in connection with the D.H. Lawrence Ranch
Description: Each of us at any given moment has a poem coiled at the center of our lives, a story that must be told. What that story is or how it is revealed may appear to shift, but the story is always there, at times urgent under pressure, at other times rising as quietly and mysteriously as mist from the pond of our being. During this 8 week workshop we will plumb the depths for that which only the letting loose of words on the page can reveal. Our focus will be on writing narrative poems based on what Galway Kinnell termed, “the intimate personal experience of a life” – allowing each of our individual voices and concerns to spring into shape from the concert of heart, mind, and body, with an ear to the music – however subtle – that is intrinsic to poetic dimension. We’ll read the narrative poems of a range of exciting contemporary poets, as well as insightful prose pieces on craft, and we’ll participate in routine peer discussions – all of which will provide us with inspiration and guidance on the way to writing as many poems as our muse allows and our spirits dare. While writers at all levels of experience can benefit, this workshop is primarily designed for beginning and intermediate poets who wish to expand their range of expression and knowledge of craft, while generating new poems and having fun.
TO REGISTER AND/OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: CONTACT US
MARCH
Dreams & Creativity Group
- Dates: Mondays, March 14 – May 23
- Times: 6pm – 8pm
- Location: Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
Description: What do all cultures that honor dreams share in common? They respond to dreams with a creative act, whether it is in dreaming the dream onward by sharing associations to its images, writing a poem, making a drawing or an image with clay, or composing a piece of music or dance. Nature speaks to us through dreams and listening to dreams is a beautiful way to access and invigorate the Creative within each of us. This workshop is for anyone interested in exploring the creative wellspring of the dream world. We will meet weekly for ten weeks to listen to and share dreams.
To register and/or for more information: Contact Us
APRIL
Association of Writers and Writers Programs (AWP) Conference & Book Fair
Copies of Her, Infinite will be available for purchase from New Issues Press. Come by, meet Sawnie, and received a personalized inscription in your copy of Her, Infinite.
- Date: April 1st
- Times: 9am – 10:15am
- Location: Book Fair, New Issues Press Booth
- Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, California
- For More Information: AWP_Conference-Book_Fair
Join Sawnie for the Official Book Release, Reading, & Celebration of Her, Infinite
- Date: Saturday, April 9
- Times: 7pm
- Location: Mable Dodge Lujan House (lower building),
- Taos, New Mexico
Description: Join Sawnie for the official book release of Her, Infinite, winner of the 2015 New Issues Press Poetry Award (Judge: Major Jackson). Sawnie will read from Her, Infinite, copies of which will be available for purchase. Sawnie will be on hand after the reading to sign books and to celebrate wildly with each of you.
TO REGISTER AND/OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: CONTACT US
Innisfree Poetry Bookstore & Café– Sawnie will read from the collection of poems, Her, Infinite
- Date: Thursday, April 21
- Times: 7 pm
- Location: Innisfree Poetry Bookstore & Café
- Boulder, Colorado
FOR MORE INFORMATION: CONTACT US
The Story Within the Story: Unleashing the Poem at the Center of Our Lives- Back by popular demand!
- Date: Monday, April 11 – Friday, June 3
- Times: An Online Workshop
- Host: Sponsored by the Rananim Project: an online writers’ community of the University of New Mexico, in connection with the D.H. Lawrence Ranch
Description: Each of us at any given moment has a poem coiled at the center of our lives, a story that must be told. What that story is or how it is revealed may appear to shift, but the story is always there, at times urgent under pressure, at other times rising as quietly and mysteriously as mist from the pond of our being. During this 8 week workshop we will plumb the depths for that which only the letting loose of words on the page can reveal. Our focus will be on writing narrative poems based on what Galway Kinnell termed, “the intimate personal experience of a life” – allowing each of our individual voices and concerns to spring into shape from the concert of heart, mind, and body, with an ear to the music – however subtle – that is intrinsic to poetic dimension. We’ll read the narrative poems of a range of exciting contemporary poets, as well as insightful prose pieces on craft, and we’ll participate in routine peer discussions – all of which will provide us with inspiration and guidance on the way to writing as many poems as our muse allows and our spirits dare. While writers at all levels of experience can benefit, this workshop is primarily designed for beginning and intermediate poets who wish to expand their range of expression and knowledge of craft, while generating new poems and having fun.
TO REGISTER AND/OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: Rananim-TSWC-Online
MAY
MUSE X 2, A Poetry Reading with Sawnie Morris & Peter Streckfus-Curated by Dana Levin and Carol Moldaw
- Date: May 8
- Times: 4pm
- Location: Collected Works Bookstore
- Santa Fe, NM
TO REGISTER AND/OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: CONTACT US
Taos Chamber Music Group Concert: In a Dream-(a collaboration)
- Date: Saturday, May 21st & Sunday, May 22nd
- Times: 5pm
- Location: Arthur Bell Auditorium of the Harwood Museum of Art
- Taos, New Mexico
Description: The Greek poet, Sappho, lived on the island of Lesbos from around 360 BC and was and still is considered a musical and poetic genius. Her work comes down to us in a lyric cascade of evocative fragments. Composer Jocelyn Morlock, of Vancouver, responded to Sappho’s single line fragment #134, I conversed with you in a dream, with a four movement piece for flute and piano. Sawnie will be reading fragments from her own poems, collaged from a new manuscript. Taos Chamber Music Group’s program will also include Daniel Strong Godfrey’s From a Dream of Russia for clarinet, violin and piano, and Gabriel Faure’s Piano Quartet in G minor.
Nancy Laupheimer, flute | Keith Lemmons, clarinet | David Felberg, violin | Shanti Randall, viola | Sally Guenther, cello | Debra Ayers, piano | Sawnie Morris, poet
For more information & tickets: taoschambermusicgroup.com
JULY
Summer Poem-A-Day Writing Workshop
- Date: Tuesday, July 5 – Monday, July 11
- Times: Daily, 10:30am–1:30pm
- Location: Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
Description: This poetry-writing event is meant to help us create, as poet Robert Hass says, poems that are “stronger and truer than ever before.” We will meet each day to share poems written within the previous 24 hours. At our first meeting, you’ll be offered a series of prompts toward the creation of a new poem. After that, you’ll bring the first draft of a new poem to our workshop each day. At the end of each workshop you’ll be provided with a magic packet to draw from, if you wish, for the inspiration of your next poem. You will be free to use the suggestions from the packets in whatever way you wish, or not at all. You’ll be eligible for one 10 minute private session with Sawnie to discuss your poems. Writers at all levels of writing experience are welcome.
TO REGISTER AND/OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: CONTACT US
What’s To Love About the Poetic Line? (A Poetry Writing Workshop)
Santa Fe Summer Writers Conference
- Date: Saturday, July 30 and Sunday, July 31
- Times: 10am-12noon, 2pm-4pm, both days
- Location: Drury Plaza Hotel, Santa Fe, NM
Description: The first visual clue that we are in the presence of a poem is language defying the dictates of margins. In poetry, the line ends where the poem compels the poet to say it must. Sometimes words flood the page, more often they spin and eddy, they splash and disperse, or make an abrupt staccato turn to prove their point. Sometimes they come to a quiet stand-still, pool, and significance rises before us like a mist, or a bright day breaking loose across a clearing in a canyon or meadow. The word “verse” derives from the Latin and contains the meanings turn and toward. In poetry, each turn of the line is a turn toward deeper meaning. How do we determine when and why to turn or break each line in our poems? In this workshop, we’ll focus on six options and approaches inherent to the contemporary free-verse line and we’ll look at poems that exemplify those choices in ways that are by turns sensory, conceptual, and emotional. In each case, one turn in the river at a time, we’ll have the thrill of expanding our range of formal options, while experimenting with the exciting possibilities that an understanding of the poetic line and what space on the page has to offer. This workshop is for beginning and intermediate poets, free-writers who are interested in giving shape to that flood of words in their notebooks, as well as for anyone who has experience writing poems and wishes to expand their range of expression and knowledge of craft, while having fun.
TO REGISTER AND/OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://unmwritersconf.unm.edu/faculty-and-workshops/weekend-workshop-faculty/US
SEPTEMBER
The Story within the Story: Unleashing the Poem at the Center of Our Lives ( A Poetry Writing Workshop )
Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop
- Date: September 16, 17, &18 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
- Times: 10am-12noon, 2pm-4pm, Saturday; 10am-12pm, Sunday
- Location: Midland County Public Library, Midland, Texas
Description: Each of us at any given moment has a poem coiled at the center of our lives, a story that must be told. What that story is or how it is revealed may appear to shift, but the story is always there, at times urgent under pressure, at other times rising as quietly and mysteriously as mist from the pond of our being.
OCTOBER
ALBUQUERQUE BOOKWORKS POETRY READING
- Sawnie will read from Her, Infinite
- Past Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, Valerie Martinez, will read from “Count”
Readings followed by Q&A and book signing
- Date: Thursday, October 27
- Time: 6pm
- Location: Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande Blvd NW, Albuquerque, NM 87107 ( just north of Griegos, in Albuquerque’s North Valley)
TO REGISTER AND/OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Us
WOMENS FOCUS, KUNM Radio, 89.9MHz
Carol Boss interviews Sawnie Morris & Valerie Martinez
- Date: Saturday, October 29, 2016
- Time: 12noon-2pm
NOVEMBER
BOULDER BOOKSTORE POETRY READING
Sawnie will read from Her, Infinite, followed by Q&A, book signing, and reception
- Date: Tuesday, November 1, 2016
- Time: 7:30pm
- Location: Boulder Bookstore,Pearl Street Mall, 1107 Pearl Street, Boulder, Colorado
Poetry Writing Workshop:
Sawnie will offer a poetry writing workshop on Thursday, November 3, 10am-1pm, upstairs at the Boulder Bookstore
TO REGISTER AND/OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Us
BRAZOS BOOKSTORE, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Sawnie will read from Her, Infinite, followed by Q&A, reception
- Date: Friday, November 18, 2016
- Time: 7pm
- Location: Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet Street, Houston, TX, 77005
A POETRY WRITING WORKSHOP, with Sawnie Morris
Saturday afternoon, November 19th. Location & exact times to be announced!
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Us
SawnieMorris.com 