An opportunity, via two workshops, to work on the art of verse with Arts Fuse Poetry Critic Daniel Bosch.

By Bill Marx.

Do you know a student of writing who is ready to explore a fresh, deeply thought, and deeply felt approach to the making of poems? Tell them that Arts Fuse‘s superb Poetry Critic Daniel Bosch is offering two such courses in poetry writing to begin this September!

Daniel will host the 10-week courses in the comfort of his home in Cambridge, just steps away from the Central Square Red Line T stop. This fall’s offerings are “The Difference,” a workshop based in the line as a musical unit and “The Ekphrastic Problem,” a workshop on the making of poems about works of visual art.

Daniel started writing poems at age five. His mentors include Derek Walcott, Richard Howard, Edward Snow, and Alan Shapiro. He has been teaching for over 20 years, at Boston University, Harvard, United South End Settlements, Tufts, Walnut Hill, and Buckingham, Browne & Nichols. To study with Daniel is to have access to a profound and distinct engagement with poetry.

Go here for course details and more information about Daniel.

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Here’s more information on this exciting opportunity:

In late September 2011, Daniel Bosch will offer two 10-week courses in poetry:

“The Difference” A workshop for 10 writers at the advanced beginner level.

“The Difference” establishes the spoken line as the fundamental unit of verse composition. It investigates how a column of air produced by a human body can excite, condition speakers’ and readers’ imaginative experiences.

In “The Difference,” writers will observe, discuss, memorize, and recite exemplary poems from a variety of sources, always with an emphasis on how strong lines are built. They will compose their own experiments in lines, seeking greater fluency with the particular effects of measure, end-marking, caesurae, syntactic patterning, line integrity, and other strategies. Each writer will emerge from the course a more sophisticated craftsperson, a stronger reader of traditional poetry from any time or place, and a keener judge of contemporary poetry.

“The Difference” meets once a week for 10 weeks and will consist of an introductory discussion, eight workshops with weekly recitations, and a celebratory end-of-course reading. Nims and Mason’s Western Wind will be supplemented by handouts from the instructor.

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“The Ekphrastic Problem” A workshop for 10 writers at the advanced level.

There are no crosswalks or stoplights at the intersection of the image and the word—but there is a lot of traffic. Welcome to “The Ekphrastic Problem,” a workshop focused on poems that respond to works of art and animated by a fundamental skepticism about whether words ought to be considered necessary by-products of seeing.

“The Ekphrastic Problem” pays close attention to the ramifications of decisions made by artists who have made verbal works of art “about” visual works of art, and it asks writers to make choices of their own in light of that attention. It looks hard at paintings, photographs, and sculptures by artists such as Brancusi, Zurbaran, Utamaro, Breughel, and Uccello, and it grapples with poems by the likes of W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, Kay Ryan, Philip Larkin, and Jorie Graham.

Writers in “The Ekphrastic Problem” compose their own experiments in ekphrastic verse each week. But at heart this course is an opportunity to stand, for a time, and very thoughtfully, where seeing, saying, and doing converge.

“The Ekphrastic Problem” is comprised of an introduction, seven workshops, one joint museum visit, and a final symposium on ekphrasis. Most of the images discussed will be accessed online. A packet of crucial texts will be provided.

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Courses meet in Central Square, Cambridge. Tuition for a 10-week course is $1000.

Spread the word! When course capacity (10 students) is reached, tuition for all is reduced to $800.

Daniel Bosch has taught writing, verse, and literature for over 20 years at Boston University, Harvard University, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and Tufts University. His book, Crucible, was published by Other Press in 2002.

His poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, The TLS, Boston Review, Literary Imagination, Beloit Poetry Review, Slate, and many other journals. He is poetry critic for Artsfuse.org.

Enrollment in both “The Difference” and “The Ekphrastic Problem” is by permission of the instructor. Information on times and locations will be available during the August registration period.