Poetry as Bewilderment [Nick Flynn]

We will consider the concept of bewilderment by examining how it is acted out in poems — either through syntax, accessing the duende, leaps into the unconscious, or simply circling around what is unsaid, unknown, unrealized. We will look for those moments in which we begin to stutter and stumble when talking about our poems — or when the poems themselves stutter — for these are the thresholds beyond which is the unknown, beyond which is the white space on the map. Please bring in a poem (not your own) that contains some aspect of bewilderment for you, with 16 copies to pass around.