“The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless-about to be birthed, but already felt.” –Audre Lorde In this workshop, we’ll explore the methods by which poetry can capture, encapsulate, and elucidates different aspects of our existence, and the realities of the world we live in. Through reading, discussion, and creative exercises, we’ll investigate the tools that poets use to communicate a range of experience, from the ineffable to the everyday. As we examine the writing of a wide array of poets, alongside students’ creative work, we’ll discuss how aspects like the poetic line, form, repetition, sound, silence, address, perspective and voice come together to light up different facets of life, while building the world of the poem, and how the poem is able to build a world within its reader.