THE STAKES: POETRY OF ILLNESS, PAIN, AND LIFETIME

Join us at Berl’s for another invigorating class and workshop with poet Farrah Field!

Class meets for five Tuesday evenings from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm

October 22, 29, November 5, 12, and 19.

Why would someone, in their final days, spend their time writing poetry? What can poetry do for a person writing in the hospital, between MRIs and surgeries, experiencing great amounts of pain, taking medications, and while suffering from diagnosed and undiagnosed illnesses? Join poet and Berl’s co-founder Farrah Field as we respectfully gather in class to read works by poets writing through and into illness and pain. We will look at poetry as catharsis, as a way to generate understanding, a way to ponder the imponderable. As we rethink of the way time unfolds, we will look at poetry is an art form fueled by study, dedication, and love.

How do poets address physical and bodily pain in their poetry? Do they write through it, past it, in spite of it, to understand it, to embody it, to overcome it? Does the pain of the body write into a poet’s form and structure? How do we as readers read their illnesses into their work? Why is it, despite all odds, poets find a way to write poetry?

Throughout our study we will workshop our own poems and respond to each other’s work. Illness and pain can be a repressed reality of anyone’s truth and we will explore how spaces and communities include the voices of those living with and expressing illness, how it makes us confront avoided feelings, visibility and invisibility, and connectivity or isolation. We will reflect on the gift of five poets’ work, the body of their craft, and poetry as a life record and an act of tending to the body.

Our Reading List:

THE LAST BOOKS OF HÉCTOR VIEL TEMPERLEY translated from Spanish by Stuart Krimko

THE SOLUBLE HOUR by Hillary Gravendyk

CANCER ANGEL by Beth Murray

THE FINAL VOICEMAILS by Max Ritvo

THE UNDYING by Anne Boyer

All five books are included with the class fee, $300.

We will discuss the books as well as workshop our own poems

and we will have a healthy snack!

Farrah Field is the author of WOLF AND PILOT, RISING, and the chapbook PARENTS. She lives in Brooklyn and is the co-founder of Berl’s Poetry Shop.

JUNE CLASS FEATURING AMY LAWLESS

Join us at Berl’s for a workshop and class with poets Farrah Field and Amy Lawless!

Class meets Tuesday nights from 7:30-9:30 

June 4, 11, 18, 25, July 2

Within the structure of a book, poets work to create many dynamics between poem, reader, and culture-at-large, all the while establishing a poetics and a conversation with poetry. Those dynamics are a lot to balance and it seems that some poets use voice and story or perhaps the creation of a character or and also the creation of a kind of world to encounter the various considerations poets address. Come read along and take inspiration with Amy and Farrah from the following books:

Heaven Is All Goodbyes by Tongo Eisen-Martin

They and We Will Get into Trouble for this by Anna Moschovakis

elsa: an unauthorized autobiography by Angela Veronica Wong  

Baby, I Don't Care by Chelsey Minnis   

Nightingalelessness by Graham Foust

All five books are included with the cost of class, $300

This all happens at

at Berl’s Poetry Shop

141 Front Street

DUMBO, Brooklyn

EVERY CLASS we will discuss assigned readings,

EVERY CLASS all attendees will workshop one poem,

and we will have a healthy snack!

About the teachers:

Amy Lawless is the author of several books of poems, most recently Broadax and My Dead, both from Octopus Books and the chapbook A Woman Alone from Sixth Finch. She is also the co-author of the hybrid book I Cry: The Desire to Be Rejected from Pioneer Works.  Poems have appeared widely-- most recently in Fence (issue 35) and Gramma.  She received a poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2011, and teaches writing and poetry workshops around New York City.

Farrah Field is the author of WOLF AND PILOT, RISING, and the chapbook PARENTS. She lives in Brooklyn and is the co-founder of Berl’s Poetry Shop.

MAY CLASS: POEMS OF THE CITY

Join poet Farrah Field for class and workshop at Berl’s!

“Though we wonder about,

find no honey of flowers in this waste,

is our task the less sweet—

who recall the old splendour,

await the new beauty of cities?”

--H.D., from “Cities”

In many of our classes at Berl’s those who have studied with me have joined me in taking note that one of the many things poetry can do is serve as a record, a collection. It can document. In this class we will read through/to/about the cities poets are documenting. How do poets address urban life? How does urban life sway diction and rhythm? Cities change—the people come and go, and move fast and are on the go, and buildings and landscape change quite often—how does rapid, slow, and constant change influence poetry? 

Class meets Tuesday nights from 7:30-9:30 

April 30, May 7, 14, 21, 28

READING LIST:

ALIEN ABDUCTION by Lewis Warsh

HI-DENSITY POLITICS by Urayoán Noel

CITY OF THE FUTURE by Sesshu Foster

NATURE POEM by Tommy Pico

CINEMA OF THE PRESENT by Lisa Robertson

All five books are included with the cost of class, $300

Berl’s Poetry Shop

141 Front Street

DUMBO, Brooklyn

EVERY CLASS we will discuss assigned readings,

EVERY CLASS all attendees will workshop one poem,

and we will have a healthy snack!

Sign up soon!

THE MONEY CLASS WITH FARRAH FIELD

Sign up for poetry class & workshop at Berl’s!

During this five-week class, we will explore how poets address the issues of money, class, debt, materialism, work, and value. 

We will read and discuss the following books:

MATERIAL GIRL by Laura Jaramillo

COAL MOUNTAIN ELEMENTARY by Mark Nowak

WOMEN, MONEY, CHILDREN, GHOSTS by Emily Bludworth de Barrios

SEMIAUTOMATIC by Evie Shockley

VALU-PLUS by Ryan Eckes

All five books are included with the cost of class, $300.

Class meets Tuesday nights from 7:30-9:30 

January 29, February 5, 12, 19, 26

at Berl’s Poetry Shop

141 Front Street

DUMBO, Brooklyn

EVERY CLASS we will discuss one poetry book,

EVERY CLASS all attendees will workshop one poem,

and we will have a healthy snack!

Sign up soon! Space is limited!

*This class was inspired by the chapbooks LIVING IN THE LOVE ECONOMY by Patricia Spears Jones and THE DEBT OR THE CRISIS by Ashleigh Lambert.

*Thank you Jared White, Cynthia Arrieu-King, and MC Hyland for helping me compile this reading list.

*The above picture is of two counterfeit fifty dollar bills used at Berl’s. Thanks, dick.

FOR THE LOVE OF BOLAÑO POETRY CLASS

Sign up for a poetry discussion & workshop at Berl’s led by Farrah Field!

July Class meets Tuesday nights in the shop from 7:30-9:30 pm for five weeks: July 10, 17, 24, 31, and August 7.

In this class we will be taking inspiration from the great novelist and poet Roberto Bolaño.

Under the Bridge, while it rains, a golden opportunity

to take a look at myself:

like a snake in the North Pole, but writing.

Our book for July Class is THE UNKNOWN UNIVERSITY by Roberto Bolaño. Come explore why Bolaño considered poetry his superior art form! Let one of the world's smartest humans influence your work!

EVERY CLASS we will discuss a section from THE UNKNOWN UNIVERSITY. EVERY CLASS all attendees will workshop one poem. And we will all have a healthy snack!

Cost is $300, which includes a copy of the book!

Sign up soon! Space is limited!

Farrah Field is the author of two poetry collections, Rising and Wolf and Pilot, as well as the chapbook Parents. With Jared White and their two children, she lives in Brooklyn and is co-founder of Berl's Poetry Shop.  

May Class with Farrah Field

Sign up for a poetry discussion & workshop at Berl’s led by Farrah Field!

Class meets Tuesday nights in the shop from 7:30-9:30pm for five weeks: May 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29.

May Class reading list is comprised of poetry and art collaborations:

• Human Achievements by Lauren Hunter
• the hindrances of a householder by Jennifer Bartlett
• revv. you’ll--ution by Brenda Iijima
• GHOST OF by Diana Khoi Nguyen
• Hollywood Forever by Harmony Holiday

EVERY CLASS we will discuss one poetry book. EVERY CLASS all attendees will workshop one poem. And we will all have a healthy snack!

Cost is $300, which includes 5 books, 5 discussions, and 5 of your poems workshopped!

Sign up soon! Space is limited!