CREATING VIBRATIONAL BUOYANCY: CALLING IN THE SENSORY IN POETRY

While we are familiar with the five senses, how does contemporary poetry expand the reach of where sense can take us energetically in a poem?  How do unexpected juxtapositions of language and image contribute to how a poem heightens and reveals?  Join Julie E. Bloemeke for a discussion of poetry that is in conversation with the sensory; we will follow with a prompt to rev and subvert your own sensibility with the sensory.  While we will look at elements of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell, we will also look at lesser identified senses including proprioception and balance.  Be sure to bring a notebook and pen for analog exercises.  A take home packet of poems referenced in discussion will also be provided. 

About the Presenter

Julie E. Bloemeke (she/her) is the 2021 Georgia Author of the Year Finalist for Poetry.  Her debut full-length collection Slide to Unlock (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) was also chosen as a 2021 Book All Georgians Should Read. Co-editor of Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing, 2023) she has also served as co-editor for the Dolly Parton tribute issue of Limp Wrist magazine. Winner of the 2022 Third Coast Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2020 Fischer Poetry Prize, her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and publications including Writer’s Chronicle, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, Cortland Review, Gulf Coast, EcoTheo Review, and others.  An associate editor for South Carolina Review and a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow, she is also a freelance writer and editor.  She holds her MA in American Literature from the University of South Carolina and her MFA in poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars. A proud native of Toledo, she currently lives in Atlanta. Visit her online at www.jebloemeke.com