FULL – Poetry and Divination – Master Class with Jenny Zhang

Event Details: Saturday, October 5, 2019, 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm The Center (208 W 13th St, New York, NY 10011)

Is poetry a union between “work” and “magic”? I think so! And so is access to the divine, whatever that means. The ancient divination practices — I Ching, tarot, astrology — humans have turned to for guidance — in both the highest and pettiest sense — require deep poetic imagination. I mean, duh. Less discussed qualities but equally important in accessing the holy— a sense of humor, irreverence, and play. Surely, the aesthetics of spiritual enlightenment and esoteric knowledge don’t always have to be so corny. We’ll look at work that is “magical” and embark on a series of prompts and exercises inspired by divination tools to write our own poems. Prior knowledge or experience working with the occult is not at all necessary, though certainly welcome.

This Master Class is now full. To be added to the waitlist, email Laura at lh@poetryproject.org

Jenny Zhang

Jenny Zhang is the author of the story collection Sour Heart, the poetry collection Dear Jenny, We Are All Find, the chapbook Hags, and the forthcoming poetry collection My Baby First Birthday. She is the recipient of the Pen/BinghamAward for Debut Fiction and the LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harpers, N+1, Rookie, The New Inquiry, PEN America, BOMB, Buzzfeed, Poetry, and elsewhere. She’s taught writing at Columbia University, The New School, University of Iowa, and various NYC public high schools. She received her MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and her BA in Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity from Stanford University.