Bright Hill Press To Host Poetry Workshops

TREADWELL—Syracuse-based poet Georgia Popoff is offering two six-week adult workshops at Bright Hill Press & Literary Center of the Catskills. The workshops will focus on haiku and prose poetry.

According to the center’s social media, Bright Hill Press, 94 Church Street, Treadwell, is a nonprofit organization “dedicated to increasing audiences’ appreciation of the writing arts and oral traditions that comprise American literature, and to encouraging and furthering the tradition of oral poetry and writing in the Catskills and beyond.”

Popoff’s first workshop, “The World Beyond Haiku—Examining Japanese Form,” will be offered virtually and runs June 17 through July 22. Sessions will take place from 7-9 p.m. on Mondays.

Popoff writes: “The beauty of haiku is its brevity, as well as its challenge, but haiku is just the first step into the forms made popular by the Japanese mystics. We will look at tanka, examine the sister forms of haiku and senryu, explore choka, haibun and zuihitsu, and create a renga together.”

Additionally, visual artists are encouraged to use haikus from the workshop as prompts for pieces to be featured in a “Haiku Response Show,” happening in Bright Hill’s Word & Image Gallery August 17 through September 14.

Popoff’s second workshop, “Is this a Poem? Prose Poetry in All its Possibilities,” will take place July 29 through September 9. This workshop, also offered virtually, takes place from 7-9 p.m. on Mondays, with no session on Labor Day.

“The notion of prose poetry can be confounding,” Popoff says. “How do we know it is a poem? Does it cross genre boundaries? What happens when we take the tools of lines, stanza, enjambment, and rely on the poetic language to drive the message to our reader? We will examine prose poems that succeed in connection as we also explore our own work in the form.”

The fee for each of Popoff’s workshops is $250.00.

Popoff, a writer, editor, arts-in-education specialist, and program coordinator for the YMCA of Central New York’s “Writers Voice,” teaches poetry and creative nonfiction. According to brighthill.org, Popoff’s fourth collection of poetry, “Psychometry,” released in 2019 by Tiger Bark Press, was a finalist for Utica College’s Eugene Nassar Poetry Prize and the Central New York Book Award for Poetry. Popoff’s fifth collection, “Living with Haints,” also released by Tiger Bark Press, was published earlier this year. Popoff was named poet laureate of Onondaga County in 2022 and is the series editor for the University of Michigan’s “Press Under Discussion” book series on contemporary poets.

For more information on Popoff, visit georgiapopoff.com or follow her on Facebook, Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter, @gappoet.

For more information on Bright Hill or to register for Popoff’s workshops, visit brighthill.org or find “Bright Hill Press” on Facebook.