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Falling into Revelation Through Form: Subhaga Crystal Bacon

An Inland Northwest Poetry Salon Workshop

This writing workshop is part of the first annual Inland Northwest Poetry Salon and features award-winning poet Subhaga Crystal Bacon.

The first formal poem to really sink its teeth into presenter Subhaga Crystal Bacon was “One Art,” by Elizabeth Bishop. Something about using the fussiness of the villanelle to contain and express the heartache of a breakup, particularly of a lesbian relationship in the closeted 1970s, spoke to Subhaga of Bishop’s particular combination of woundedness and genius. In the essay, “What Form Can Hold,” Philip Metres says, "Writing in received form offers us a vessel for containing what could not be held otherwise...Falling into a form can trick us into saying something and to surprise ourselves into revelation." In this class, we’ll look at poems in traditional forms that accomplish this "surprise revelation" and take away some prompts to help trick us into our own surprising revelations.

This is one of eleven poetry events occurring at the first annual Inland Northwest Poetry Salon on June 1st.

This first-annual, day-long event at the Liberty Park Library (402 S. Pittsburg Street) will feature panels, poetry workshops and a bevy of local writers. The Inland NW Poetry Salon celebrates the craft of poetry, spotlights regional poets, and welcomes participants in all phases of their writing lives.

About the presenter: Subhaga Crystal Bacon (she/they), is the author of four collections of poetry including Transitory, 2023, winner of the BOA Editions, Ltd. Isabella Gardner Award for Poetry; Surrender of Water in Hidden Places, winner of the Red Flag Poetry Chapbook Prize, 2023; Blue Hunger, from Methow Press, 2020, and Elegy with a Glass of Whiskey, winner of the A. Poulin New Poetry America Prize from BOA Editions in 2004. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, Subhaga is a teaching artist working in schools and libraries with youth and adults, as well as private students. Their work appears in a variety of print and online journals including The Diode Poetry Journal, The Bellevue Literary Review, Indianapolis Review, Smartish Pace, and others. A Queer elder, they live in rural northcentral Washington on unceded Methow land. 

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For all event information inquiries, email telref@spokanelibrary.org or call 509-444-5300.

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