Is a thing? A product? Something visible? Or is it an act, a mindset, a calling? Both? Something else?

Isn’t all writing by its very nature “creative”? How is poetry (as “imaginative”) different from other kinds of writing that are based more on ideation, on content, thinking, and reasoning (“ideative” communication)? How are creative and ideative communication modes related, surprisingly, by the word “essay”?

And what is a poem? How is poetry, which is written in “verse,” different than “prose,” which is written in paragraphs? Why do poets do what they do how they do? Is poetry an art? A craft? How so?

Why call this class a "workshop"? What will distinguish it from a "regular" English class?

The Personal Notebook course is essential to the Poema experience. Poet-chef Billy Collins likes to call this "a log of the self." In order to truly savor your potential, you must write daily, in Poema and out--in other words, this first course will stay with you all the time (in a good way!). This is where you get to gather ingredients from your world and experiment to your heart's content. Be prepared to snippet, observe, list, sketch, photograph, plan, collect, dream, wonder, answer, doubt--and most of all, to be surprised and to surprise. In your notebook is a tantalizing world ready to be shared.

Eat this to discover ways to show instead of tell, as well as ways to explore what makes you unique (through careful observations and vivid memories).

Eat this to improve your poetic diction (word choice, denotation, and connotation) and syntax (the artful arrangement of words).

Eat this to explore lines--with all their end-stopped, enjambed, caesuraed goodness--and stanzas--those Italian "little rooms." You'll realize that size and length DOES matter!

Eat this to play with repetition, alliteration, consonance, assonance, and onomatopoeia. It's ok to chew with your mouth open and make as much noise as possible!

Become what Aristotle said was the "greatest thing by far": becoming a "master of metaphor." This part of the second course will be a ____ (you fill in the blank!).

Finish off the second course with a mouthful that will taste different depending on your point of view: first, second or third person...or even omniscient!

The crowning entree, your prized dish, has a very numerical (that's a secret for now!) but unique recipe. Indeed, each Personal Portfolio will capture the one-and-only voice of each Diner Designer, proving that you, too, can cook with words! Ingredients will include samplings from your Personal Notebook, selections of succulent poem braised in your mind and heart and workshop process, previously published poems and works of nonfiction painstakingly deconstructed and re-presented, poems worth sharing with others beyond the Poema experience, visually and aurally appealing poems, and, of course, a final reflective bite to tie everything together. Bon appetit!