On December 9th, in celebration of the upcoming festival of Chanukah, Elana Dorfman treated 32 participants to a highly successful workshop on the subject of Light. By a judicious pairing of poems from different poets, she explored the image of light in its many aspects: for instance it can be used to symbolize death, or life; as oppressive and heavy or as enlightenment, discovery or realization; it can symbolize knowledge; it can be uncomfortable, even frightening. And sometimes illumination can only be achieved by making mistakes.
After considering each pair of poems, each on a different aspect of light, participants had three or four minutes to make notes based on the theme of the pair. Finally came the main 20-minute exercise: writing the first draft of a poem.
Since there were so many participants, there wasn’t time to hear them all at the end of the workshop. Instead, Elana invited everyone to participate in a poetry reading of the edited / polished versions of the poems started at the workshop, which took place on January 13th. This was also the final date for sending in the poems for inclusion in an e-chapbook commemorating the workshop, as usual. 25 of the original participants came to the poetry reading and sent in one or two poems each for the chapbook.
Many thanks to Elana for both preparing and presenting the workshop and, in her role as our workshop coordinator, for organizing it.
Below is a screenshop of the 25 participants from the poetry reading:
And a few of the readers: from left to right, Fran Levin, Michele Bustin and Phyllis Becker:
And finally, our sole screenshot from the original workshop: Elana as presenter, Donna Bechar who snapped the screenshot (small inset), and the chat showing some of the enthusiastic comments Elana received. Many thanks to Donna for this screenshot!
Voices Israel Group of Poets in English 