Writing Alongside Yeats and Pessoa [Deborah Woodard]

Two poets writing in the shadows of adjacent domineering cultures and two poets projecting their visions through multiple masks and shades, Yeats and Pessoa can teach us a great deal about the literary uses of indirection and provocation. One intensely lyrical (Yeats) and one distinctly postmodern (Pessoa), together they give the lie to the idea that poetry is the simple act of being yourself on the page. Let’s be mentored by them as we find different ways to speak authentically. Appropriate for all levels. Weekly prompts and reading assignments.

Required Texts (available at Elliott Bay Book Company):

Pessoa, Fernando. Pessoa & Company. ed. and translated by Richard Zenith (Grove Press, New York, 1998)

Pessoa, Fernando. The Complete Poems of Alberto Caeiro. translated by Chris Daniels (Shears Books, Exeter, 2007)

Yeats, W.B., The Collected Poems of W.B Yeats, ed. Richard J. Finneran (Scribner, New York, 1983