RBWG poetry workshops start June 30

The Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild will offer a summer poetry workshop designed to inspire and motivate writers of all skill levels starting Monday, June 30.

Experiments in Poetry IV (participants do not need to have taken Experiments I, II or III), taught by Gail Comorat and Ethan Joella, two working, publishing and award-winning poets, will focus each week on a different poetic form or theme that participants are encouraged to try in their own writing. The goal is to encourage participants to write about subjects and topics they might never have written about otherwise and to also inspire participants to write about the topics they’re familiar with, but in a whole new way. Participants will study and then try to write poems of forgiveness and farewell, question poems, one-sentence poems, letter poems, and form poems.

As in the other experiments classes, the class is not exclusive to people who want to write poetry. It’s for fiction writers, essayists, and memoirists too. “There is no prose writer who can’t benefit from poetry’s emphasis on word choice, on voice, on emphasis, and on tone and rhythm,” says novelist Maribeth Fischer, who as a university instructor used to insist that her fiction writers take a poetry class.

The six-week class will be held 10 a.m. to noon, Monday mornings, June 30-Aug. 4 in the Lutheran Church of Our Savior (behind Big Fish Grill on Route 1 in Rehoboth). The class will have no more than eight members so each participant has ample time to receive feedback during workshops. The cost is $270 for RBWG members and $300 for nonmembers

In addition to the poetry class, the Rehoboth Beach Writers' Guild offers classes in novel writing and memoir, Experiments in Prose. The RBWG offers four Free Writes! a week, a monthly art-inspired Free Write! and monthly literary readings. For more information about the Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild, its classes or its instructors, go to www.rehobothbeachwritersguild.com.