Poetry With a Hefty Trowel of Attitude

Poetry Writing Workshop

Featuring the Columbus troupe of award-winning poets, Concrete Wink, made up of Sandy Feen, Chuck Salmons, and Rikki Santer.

To write excellent poetry, you must practice the art of packing the maximum punch with a minimum of words. In this three-hour workshop, participants will explore model poems that demonstrate specialized techniques such as how to move or anchor poems through line and stanza breaks and how to synchronize form and content to maximize meaning.                    

Participants will also respond to writing prompts that reflect such topics as mining memory, honoring place, and cultivating personal voice.  Bring a laptop or pen/paper and be ready to write.  At the end of the workshop all participants will have an opportunity to share their work with the group.

Sandra Feen is a former associate editor of Pudding magazine and currently works as an independent poetry and urban fiction editor. Sandy has been a featured reader in venues in and out of Ohio for over 30 years as well as former co-facilitator for several reading series. In addition, she performs work by Holocaust writers in Susan Millard Schwarz's Anahata Music Project. A member of the Ohio Poetry Association, Bistro Poets, and former director of the Ohio Poetry Therapy Writers’ Group, Sandy has a BFA in Creative Writing and a BS in English Education from Bowling Green State University, as well as an MA in Literature from Wright State University. She was one of twelve teachers selected for a National Endowment of the Arts first "Change Course" program through Wright State University's Institute on Writing and Its Teaching. Her publications include Columbus Creative Cooperative’s anthology The Ides of March, Poetry Motel, Pudding House’s Elastic Ekphrastic and Pudding House Gang, work commissioned as part of Thin Places: Poetry and Art Exhibits and Installations at Columbus, Ohio’s Jung Haus, and Cap City Poets: Columbus and Central Ohio’s Best Known, Read, and Requested Poets anthology. A collection of her poems was named finalist for The Lascaux Review’s 2018 Lascaux Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, Fragile Capacities: School Poems (Night Ballet Press, 2018)—nominated for the Ohioana Book Award—highlights her 32-year teaching career in an urban school system. The poem “Palms Monday” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
 
Native Columbus resident Chuck Salmons is currently President of the Ohio Poetry Association. His poems have appeared in several journals and anthologies, including Pudding Magazine, Evening Street Review, Olentangy Review, Common Threads, The Fib Review, Red Thread Gold Thread, Everything Stops and Listens, and Appleseeds. He won the 2011 William Redding Memorial Poetry Contest, sponsored by The Poetry Forum of Columbus, and regularly gives readings throughout Ohio. His chapbook, Stargazer Suite, was released in December 2016 and is available from 11th Hour Press. His second chapbook, Patch Job, was published by NightBallet Press in 2017. He is a recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for his poetry. Chuck loves science, which often influences his poems, and is thrilled about the discovery of water on Mars and gravitational waves. Learn more at www.chucksalmons.com.  

Rikki Santer’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications both nationally and abroad including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Margie, The Journal of American Poetry, Hotel Amerika, Crab Orchard Review, Grimm, Slipstream and The Main Street Rag. Her work has received many honors including four Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her seventh collection, In Pearl Broth, was published this spring by Stubborn Mule Press.  She lives in Columbus, Ohio. Contact her at www.rikkisanter.com.