Jul 15-18: Richard Osler poetry workshop

Upcoming Poetry Writing Retreat
Honeymoon Bay Lodge and Retreat Centre
near Cowichan Lake, Vancouver Island

with
Richard Osler

Jul 15 - 18 (Thu - Sun)

All-in cost:
Double Occupancy $360
Single Occupancy $510

Richard Osler | osler@shaw.ca | 604 836-7875


“Poems are not . . . simply emotions . . . they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and things . . . and know the gestures which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you have long seen coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained . . .; to childhood illnesses . . . to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel . . . and it is still not enough.”
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
in Freedman’s 1996 biography of Rainer Maria Rilke

For the sake of poetry we are asked to go beyond ourselves, beyond what we know and often, beyond how we see the world. At its best poetry changes us - both when we read it and when we write it. Come and experience this first hand with Richard Osler in the spectacular setting of the Honeymoon Bay Lodge and Retreat Centre on Vancouver Island.

Experience your own surprising words as they appear through "poetic experiements" as the poet Jane Hirschfield calls them. During the retreat there will be five writing sessions. In these sessions you will be encouraged to relax into the sounds and musical language of noted contemporary poets. Then, through carefully chosen "experiments" (assignments) that use powerful examples chosen from poets writing at the top of their craft, you will be invited, and guided, to write your own poems in response. Between sessions there will be ample time for quiet and reflection. Retreatants will be offered also the chance to experience the transforming power of a guided walk through the lodge's labyrinth.

A non-refundable deposit of $100.00 is required to secure a place. WIth the deposit should be a post-dated cheque dated May 31st, 2010 for the balance owing. The amount of the post dated cheque will be refundable if the cancelled space is filled by another retreatant. Cheques should be made payable to Richard Osler and sent to1046 Queens Ave., Victoria, B.C. V8T 1M8. (Soon! We have ten rooms available which means a minimum of about 10 to 12 retreatants.)

"Most people…think that writing means writing down ideas, insights, visions. They feel that they must first have something to say before they can put it on paper. For them writing is little more than recording a pre-existent thought. But with this approach true writing is impossible. Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive…The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves, ‘I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write.’ Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare “to give” away on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath…and gradually come in touch with our own riches.”

Henri Noewen