Marge Piercy Intensive Poetry Workshop in
Wellfleet, Massachusetts

The June 2010 workshop was wonderful!
We are in the process of uploading photos of the parties, the reading,
the participants and their comments.

Right now we are planning for June, 2011. The workshop will run from June 20-25.
On December 1st, we will begin accepting submissions. First we will confirm that those poets who applied for 2010 and were preaccepted for 2011 are still committed. After that, we will read new submissions and accept poets until we have 12 participants and 2 alternates.

Marge Piercy is one of America’s preeminent poets. Following a choice made in her university years not to pursue an academic teaching career but to devote her energies to writing--seventeen novels, seventeen highly regarded volumes of poetry including some of America’s most anthologized contemporary poems--Marge nonetheless enjoys contact with serious students and gives workshops at colleges, writers conferences and select retreat centers around the country.
 
For over thirty years Marge has lived in Wellfleet, a small but celebrated fishing village on Outer Cape Cod, year-round home of many artists and writers, summer retreat for some of the most famous names in American literature. The irony of leaving one very special place to teach in another ( Aspen, Boulder, Esalen, etc.) has never been lost on Marge, and for some time it had been her desire to try something completely different:  an intensive poetry workshop of her own design and held in her own home town. Out of many submissions twelve poets were chosen to participate in June, 2010. They traveled to Wellfleet from as far away as Switzerland and England.

With a limited size class of twelve serious students, daily group sessions are held in a comfortable, climate-controlled facility just outside the village, while individual, one-on-one student conferences take place in the gazebo at Marge’s hillside home among the gardens. The five-day week in 2010 inluded a dinner and cocktail party, a bonfire on the beach and a poetry reading open to the public, comprised of Marge and the entire class. This year all participants are being interviewed individually and reading their poems on Jose Gouveia's Poetry Corner, WOMR-FM public radio streaming worldwide from Provincetown. A social network on Ning was set up months before the class in order to begin the process of building a sense of community among participants.
 
This is a week to work with a master teacher and hone your craft with emphasis on imagery, oral aspects, line lengths and line breaks, and the uses of persona. Writing exercises are assigned to improve specific areas of technique. We also work on delivery throughout the workshop, since readings are the point of sale for most poetry books.
 
Starting December 1, 2010, participants will be selected on the basis of 5 poems [limit 7 pages]  submitted via email to Piercy Poetry Intensive in the body of the email or as an MS WORD attachment in one file. (Unfortunately some submissions have been trapped by a spam catcher, so if you don't receive a response to your submission, please try again.)

Again, submissions for June 2011 will begin to be judged as of December 1, 2010.
 
The cost is $450 per student. If accepted, a nonreturnable deposit of $200 is required but will be returned should the class be cancelled. Once accepted, on May 1, 2011 you will be asked to send 10 additional  poems. 

Information about lodging, food and local activities in Wellfleet and on Outer Cape Cod will happily be provided but it is the responsibility of participants to procure and pay for all dining and lodging arrangements themselves, as well as local transportation.

If you are interested in applying--after December 1st, please--send five poems--in one file, limit seven pages--to Piercy Poetry Intensive. (If possible, please format to MS-Word 2003 or send all poems in the body of the e-mail.) Upon acceptance to the workshop, you'll receive additional information and be asked for your deposit.

Some comments from 2010:

"It's one week after the workshop ended and I feel like the sound is still buzzing in my ear, like after you leave a concert and you can still hear the music afterwards. You have taught me so much: About line breaks, about not mumbling, about being more confident in my voice and committed to my poetry.  You selected a magical and amazing group of women who I hope will continue to be in my life for a long time to come."
--A Participant from Massachusetts

"I just wanted you to know that the workshop was truly one of the best I have ever attended. We had an amazing group of women and the way you ran the workshop and the topics you discussed seemed to be tailor-made to fit our needs.  I also want to thank you for all the wonderful input and help you gave me. I feel ready to take on poetry again with a new dedication, devotion, and insight. I am not only able to write with more abandon now (leaving the "inner censor" at the door until I need her), but I am likewise determined to give myself the space and structure needed to write.  I have already created a workspace here at home just for writing (i.e., no bills or other tasks) and am ready to axe those things that "clutter" my life and keep me from having the time to write and the space to focus. I think I knew somewhere deep down that the decluttering of daily life had to be done, but I just hadn't acted on it. Your workshop has given me the determination to act.  it was an life-altering experience and you are an amazing, inspiring woman. You made our week in the Cape much more than just a workshop. I am in love with Wellfleet -- from the beaches and bonfires to the Duck Creek Inn ghost. And I feel very fortunate to have a glimpse into your life and community."
-A Participant from Illinois

"I read a poem in our workshop and you said, 'What a brilliant idea.' Those words--that word--idea, idea, idea. My life has been cast with characters who called me stupid. Your comment has helped me (begin to) negate those voices, because once, an idea I had was called brilliant--by Marge Piercy!!! Thank you so much for that moment, for that gift.
The women I met this week have also had an impact on the way I view my life. We all came here for the same reason--we have bneeded your strength, your wisdom, and your poetry so we could find our own strength, our own wisdom, and our own poetry. We formed friendships and cried together--it was emotional and powerful. It was beautiful."
--A Participant from Oregon

Located some seventy-five miles out to sea on the winding tail of Cape Cod, the Town of Wellfleet is bounded by the wild Atlantic Ocean and the calm waters of Cape Cod Bay. Over 60% of the town’s land area is located within the boundaries of the Cape Cod National Seashore ensuring that its spring-fed kettle ponds, desolate back shore beaches, bayside salt marshes, and working harbor remain free from development.

Ten months a year—known as the ‘off-season’—Wellfleet hosts a permanent population of roughly 2,700, including fishermen, tradesmen, artists, and surprisingly active retirees, while July and August—known on the Cape as the notorious ‘summuh’ season —ensures a number-jump to 20,000 visitors from all over the world.

With its constantly changing panorama of dunes, sail boats, and trawlers, and the sandy flats that give rise to its world-famous oysters, Wellfleet is equally cherished for its Central Village, a pedestrian and bicycle-friendly shopping area of old homes, fine restaurants, cafes, a celebrated five-star library, and the cloister of more than twenty galleries—all within walking distance—that make it known as Cape Cod’s ‘art gallery town.’

Bordering Truro to the north, which in turn borders Provincetown, Wellfleet is one of three towns comprising The Outer Cape, one of the best known artists’ retreats in American cultural history. Eugene O’Neill, Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, Jackson Pollack, Robert Motherwell, Edmund Wilson, Mary McCarthy, Tennessee Williams, Norman Mailer, Howard Zinn, all lived and worked here, and today, Robert Pinsky, Michael Cunningham, Alice Hoffman, Sebastian Junger, Noam Chomsky, among many others, call it their second home (see Jhumpa Lahiri's NY Times article). Wellfleet is also home to the Cape Cod Modern House Trust dedicated to preserving the experimental structures inspired by some of the most famous names in post-WWII architecture and the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, the premiere regional theater.

Check out much more about Wellfleet including its hotels and motels, B&B’s, cottages and apartments, and restaurants, as well as articles from the NY Times about Wellfleet in the off-season and in high summer.

If you are interested in applying, please send 5 poems--in one file; limit seven pages--to Piercy Poetry Intensive. (If possible, please format to MS-Word 2003 or send all poems in the body of the e-mail.) Upon acceptance to the workshop, you'll receive additional information.
Submissions will be read as of December 1, 2010.