"This will be a generative and slightly philosophical workshop on writing poetry. Two concepts I’d like to work with are Negative Capability* and the Vatic Voice**. More than concepts, these are directly experienceable 'moments' in the living creative process of any artist. Courting these moments is crucial for the poet who wants to write poems that reach beyond the limitations and boundaries of the poet’s mindset. The personal in poetry (and in any art) is important, but when the impersonal, or universal, intersects with the personal, something new and surprising can arise. I’ll bring in several examples in the poetry of poets you may know for us to explore. Also, we’ll try our hands with two or three generative exercises to see if we can not only court this experience, but encounter it face to face. The purpose is not to replace any aspect of your creative process as it stands, but to add another pathway or two that can supplement the work you’re already doing. My early mentor James Dickey taught me about this way of working, and I’ve been exploring it with great pleasure ever since. It never ends, and I’m grateful for that. By the end of the workshop, you will have two or three first drafts of short poems, or maybe the beginnings of longer poems. Hopefully you’ll also have some new ways to 'court' your muse that will make you increasingly productive. I look forward to our time together."
*Negative Capability: The ability to embrace uncertainty, mystery, and doubt without an "irritable reaching after fact and reason." Coined by poet John Keats in 1817, this concept refers to accepting ambiguity rather than rushing to premature conclusions. It is a creative, open-minded approach allowing for profound exploration and deeper artistic or intellectual insight (definition courtesy of Wikipedia).
**The Vatic Voice: The poet Donald Hall says, “It is the vatic voice (which is not necessarily able to write good poetry, or even passable grammar) which rushes forth the words of excited recognition, which supplies what we call inspiration.” This quote is from “The Vatic Voice: Waiting and Listening,” an essay by Donald Hall from his book, Breakfast Served Anytime All Day (University of Michigan Press, 2004).
Jim Peterson’s newest poetry collection is Towheaded Stone Thrower, his tenth book overall, including eight collections of poetry, a novel, and a collection of short stories. Other recent books are The Sadness of Whirlwinds (stories, 2021), The Horse Who Bears Me Away (poems, 2020), and Speech Minus Applause (poems, 2019). Several hundred of his poems and stories have been published in more than eighty journals and anthologies. Peterson’s wife Harriet was a professional equestrian (teaching, training, competing). Life among horses became a strong bonding element of their relationship. Harriet died in September of a brain tumor in 2016. His life with her (including her love of horses and her illness) became the subject of his latest poetry collection, which was listed as one of the year’s best poetry collections of 2025 by The California Review of Books. Peterson’s poems have won the Benjamin Saltman Award from Red Hen Press, an Academy of American Poets Award, and a Fellowship in Poetry from the Virginia Arts Commission. A number of his plays have been produced in regional and college theaters. Until his retirement in 2013, he was Coordinator of Creative Writing at Randolph College and was later the Pearl S. Buck Writer-in-Residence there in the Fall of 2017. Many years ago, he was founder and editor of the poetry journal Kudzu and later was editor of The Devil’s Millhopper poetry magazine and press. He also taught for fifteen years in the University of Nebraska Omaha Low-Res MFA Program in Creative Writing. Born in Georgia and reared in South Carolina, he continues to live and write in the mysterious and beautiful foothills of southwest Virginia.
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