An all-levels generative virtual workshop with poet Tyler Barton!
When you write, do you prefer scissors over a pen? Are there hidden messages in the newspaper? If intense pressure makes diamonds, can a strict constraint make for gem-like lyricism? A yes to any of the above means you belong here. Taking its name from a specific technique for finding poems in newsprint, the "Gutter Poem" is a form of cut-up poetry that imposes a unique constraint: lines are found spanning the gap between two adjacent columns of text. Experimental visual poet Tyler Barton will introduce this approach to show how "gutters" can inspire surprising, fragmented, otherworldly poetry.
About the Instructor: Tyler Barton is the author of Eternal Night at the Nature Museum (Sarabande Books) and The Quiet Part Loud (Split/Lip). His short fiction has appeared The Iowa Review, DIAGRAM, NANO Fiction, Subtropics, Wigleaf, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, and many others. Stories from Eternal Night have been awarded prizes and honors from Kenyon Review, Phoebe Journal, The Chicago Review of Books, The Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions, and have twice been named “Distinguished” by Best American Short Stories. His visual poetry project, Gutters has been featured in The Adroit Journal, Northwest Review, december, The Pinch, and elsewhere. The full-length manuscript of this visual poetry project, The Houses that the Homes Could Never Be, was awarded a 2025 NYSCA Support for Artists Grant.
* *This workshop will take place on Zoom.**
