Third Genre: Between Poetry & Prose with Marwa Helal

Six Thursdays, February 20–March 26

This workshop will sharpen our writers’ sense of whether what we’re writing is better off as a poem or whether it ought to be prose. But what do you do when it’s both? Together, we will explore forms such as the lyric essay, poets’ prose, and hybrid texts. We will think through what makes a poet’s prose successful, how to establish structure and voice, how and when to use documents, and approaches to the inclusion of image and collage. Readings will include Cathy Park Hong, Sarah Manguso, Anne Carson, Rainer Maria Rilke, Eula Biss, Hanif Abdurraqib, Lucia Perillo, Ocean Vuong, and more.

Class Dates:
Thursday, February 20, 6–8:30pm
Thursday, February 27, 6–8:30pm
Thursday, March 5, 6–8:30pm
Thursday, March 12, 6–8:30pm
Thursday, March 19, 6–8:30pm
Thursday, March 26, 6–8:30pm

Marwa Helal is a poet and journalist. She is the author of Invasive species (Nightboat Books, 2019) and winner of BOMB Magazine’s Biennial 2016 Poetry Contest. She has been awarded fellowships from Poets House, Brooklyn Poets, and Cave Canem, and is a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Born in Al Mansurah, Egypt, Helal currently lives and teaches in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School and her BA in journalism and international studies from Ohio Wesleyan University.