Writing through Art:
Poetry Workshop with Jan Freeman
October 31 - november 6, 2024
Join Jan Freeman, acclaimed poet and Paris Press founding Director (1995 - 2018) for The MASS MoCA Writing Through Art Poetry Retreat, a generative writing experience. Explore the many ways that visual art can open your poems and perception in this expansive 6-day writing retreat. Through daily prompts, exercises, discussions, and readings, you will experience how paintings, prints, sculpture, and installations can open memories, emotion, and the imagination and help you explore new ways of expressing yourself. The week will include morning workshops and afternoon sessions writing in your private studio, the MASS MoCA galleries, and the Clark Art Institute.
Poets and writers of all levels of experience are welcome.
Each participant receives a private 60-minute conference focusing on your writing goals, 4 poems of your choice, or an overview of a manuscript. A more in-depth manuscript consultation is available for an additional fee.
Contact Jan Freeman for additional information.
Cost:
$1,600 (limited financial assistance available)
Payable by check to Jan Freeman, 1117 West Rd., Ashfield, MA 01330, or via Venmo @ Jan-Freeman-7.
Included:
Private writing studio at the museum, with 24/7 access. Private bedroom (queen-sized bed) with shared bathroom and kitchen in walk-up apartments across the street from MASS MoCA. Learn more about our facilities. Free admission to MASS MoCA, the Clark Art Institute and the Williams College Museum of Art throughout the week. Free parking. Welcome dinner on arrival. Boxed lunches provided every day except for departure day.
Extras: The Berkshires in the fall are a haven for cultural and outdoor activities. Walks along the paths on the grounds of the Clark Art Institute, and hiking the trails in North Adams and Williamstown, offer the beauty of New England in full autumn. In addition, all MASS MoCA performances are available at the members’ discount.
To reserve your space, contact: Jan Freeman
Instructor bio:
Jan Freeman is the author of Blue Structure, Simon Says, Hyena, and Autumn Sequence, and the co-editor of Sisters: An Anthology. Her poems are forthcoming in Plume and Barrow Street, and have been widely published in anthologies and literary journals, including The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, American Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Ekphrastic Review, North American Review, Plume, Poetry Magazine, and Salamander. She is a 2023 MacDowell fellow, a 2022 Spiral Shell Fellow at Moulin a Nef/VCCA, and a 2020–2022 associate at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center.
Jan founded Paris Press in 1995 to publish The Life of Poetry by Muriel Rukeyser, which addresses the importance of living with the arts, especially poetry, in our daily lives to help us be more sensate and compassionate human beings. Other groundbreaking yet overlooked works of literature that she published include Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Correspondence with Susan Dickinson, On Being Ill by Virginia Woolf, and National Book Critics Award winning Ordinary Words by Ruth Stone. Paris Press books have achieved national and international acclaim. In 2018, the Press moved to Wesleyan University Press, and the Paris Press archives were acquired by the Amherst College Frost Library.
She is a Poet Educator with Mass Poetry. Jan teaches weekly Zoom Writing Through Nature and Art poetry workshops and provides manuscript consultations, editorial services, and coaching to poets and writers. Jan is completing a new collection of poetry, Mobius, which addresses grief, trauma, identity, and family. Many of the poems in Mobius are in conversation with the work of contemporary women painters.