Poetry with Cate Lycurgus
Word from the Wilderness
In this week-long, multi-mode workshop, we will interrogate the concept of wilderness—both as a literal, often vanishing landscape and also a place from which we live and write. Over several days we will explore what it means to witness, lament, and even praise while wandering in territory beyond our control. Rather than approach wilderness as chaos to master, overcome, or escape, we will aim to encounter wildness and come face to face with our environment, including our true and finite selves.
Each session will include close reading of sample poems, group discussion, generative exercises, and observation-based workshop. All levels of experience welcome; the only requirement is a willingness to engage and explore.
Each Day
We will begin with a check-in/grounding, and then a warm-up exercise. After that we will discuss some of the day's sample poems with generative prompts scattered among the readings. In the second portion of each session we will workshop poems either previously submitted or from the previous day's exercises, using an observational model.
Preparation
Before the class, I hope participants can write to introduce themselves, sharing where they're coming from (literally, writing-wise, and life-wise) and what they hope to experience during the Glen week. I will give participants the option to have us discuss drafts they've written previously, or drafts written during our time together. Regardless, we will workshop cold so a lot of advance work isn't necessary.
Supplies
Please bring pens, paper, and a laptop.
Who is best suited for this class?
This class is for those who are in the wilderness and long to escape it, or those who long for more wilderness, or wildness, in their lives. It is for those excited to talk about poems and how language moves and works, and eager to push themselves to discovery through both the act of reading and writing. Prior experience with poetry isn't required, but a willingness to share, explore, and be vulnerable is.
About the Instructor
Cate Lycurgus is the author of Seacliff (Bull City Press 2025). Her writing has appeared in Best American Poetry, ZYZZYVA, the American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers' Conferences and received 2nd place in Narrative's 2022 Poetry Contest.
While currently teaching business writing at San Jose State University, Cate has also bartended and worked construction on Native American reservations throughout the West. After receiving her MFA in poetry from Indiana University in Bloomington, she returned to the Bay Area for full-time caregiving. In addition to her own creative work, for the last ten years, Cate has conducted interviews for 32 Poems. Recently, with Keetje Kuipers, she is co-curating the Headwaters Reading Series for Health and Well-being, presenting writing on issues of mental, women's and indigenous health to Western Montanans. She also leads writing workshops at Hugo House and The Writing Salon SF, but when not immersed in words, Cate loves to run, surf, dance, cook delicious vegan food, and listen to baseball on the radio.