Susan Rich and Kelli Russell Agodon co-teach poetry workshops for beginners to those with reams of poems coming out the drawers. This Saturday, the two will continue their classes with Demystifying the Manuscript: A Poetry Workshop. I caught up with Susan to talk about the class, her relationship with Kelli and the cruel hand of doubt. 

 

You’re doing this project with Kelli, right? What is it about your friendship and collaborative style that will bring this class to life?

Yes, Kelli Russell Agdon and I have been teaching workshops together for almost five years. We love collaborating together! Sometimes a friendship just seems to work in terms of sharing ideas, dreaming big, and having diverse skills. Kelli and I are different in so many ways: age, ethnicity, religion, geography — but I believe this adds to our workshops. We connect with each other as writers and poets. We both believe in community and in extending that community any way we can.

What about the chapbook format appeals to you? 

The second class for next Saturday, From Manuscript Into Book: Demystifying the Process, is for poets who have a stack of poems at home and would like to feel a sense of completion regarding their own work. We don’t promise a completed book at the end of three hours. Not at all. But we do offer different ways of understanding book structure. And although I am a great fan of the chapbook and judged the Floating Bridge Chapbook Award (along with the other editors) for many years, I also know that the format is not right for everyone. This workshop is really for anyone thinking of putting a book together — chapbook or otherwise.

To someone who fears sharing their work with people, even a teacher, what would you say as encouragement? 

Creating community is my favorite thing about a poetry workshop. Many of the poets take classes with Kelli and me over and over (we change the format each time to accommodate this) because of the powerful act of writing together. Some poets share their work after a prompt, many do not feel the need to, but in either case, writing in a group of other supportive people changes the dynamic. I think there are several projects around Seattle right now that recognize that reading or writing together is a valuable act.

What is your favorite thing about a poetry workshop? 

Don’t we all feel shy and awkward about sharing our work? I know I do — at least at first. Kelli and I do our best to create an atmosphere of mutual support (it seems to happen naturally with each great group) and that allows many poets the confidence to read. Of course there is no expectation that poets need to do this. Everyone has their own comfort level with this and we respect that 100%.

When you feel the tugging hand of doubt with your work what do you do? 

Could I rephrase your question like this: Do you ever *not* feel the tugging hand of doubt concerning your own work? I have published four collections of poetry and edited an anthology of essays on poetry and travel but the “tugging hand of doubt” as you so aptly describe it remains ever present. In fact, as my work as a poet continues, I’ve come to accept that this doubt is actually a positive element of the process. Positive but hardly comfortable. Let’s take the Seattle Seahawks. If they do exactly what they did last year at the Super Bowl it probably won’t work. This is a different team different turf, different year. They have to change and at the same time, stay impossibly great. Forgive me for comparing my poetic practice to this stellar team. (Go Hawks!) What I want to say is that in football or poetry or love, doubt pushes us deeper into ourselves and forces us to become better as writers, lovers, and football players.