Poet Erin Belieu will be joining the sold-out workshops of Martín Espada and Dana Levin at the 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference, happening the week of July 18-25. Registration for Erin's class is available here, as well as by calling 360.385.3102, x131.

Erin Belieu is the author of three poetry collections, all from Copper Canyon Press. Her first book, Infanta (1995), was a winner of the National Poetry Series, selected by Hayden Carruth. Infanta was chosen as a best book of the year by The Washington Post and Library Journal. Erin's second collection, One Above & One Below, was the winner of the Midland Authors Prize in poetry and the Ohioana prize. Belieu's most recent collection, Black Box, was a finalist in 2007 for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Belieu's poems have appeared in places such as The Best American Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, and AGNI. Belieu is presently Director of The Graduate Creative Writing Program at Florida State University.

Erin Belieu's Class Description

"Vision and Revision": As most of the heavy lifting when making a poem happens in the revision process, we'll spend our time in this workshop discussing strategies and techniques for taking drafts to the next level. Why do some poems refuse to stand up straight? How do I construct a narrative to support the story my poem tells? Is my poem telling the best part of the story? How and why does a lyric work? What are other formal choices that might suit the voice and imagery with which I'm working? There are constructive strategies one can learn to help answer these questions, ones that will keep you writing well beyond our workshop. My goal is to give you new tools for your tool box that will help you solve these conundrums when you're working on your own. This process may involve generating new poems during our time together at the conference as well as poems you'll be asked to bring with you to class. Register