Dorsey Craft
Dorsey Craft's first collection, Plunder, won the May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize from Bauhan Publishing. She is also the author of a chapbook, The Pirate Anne Bonny Dances the Tarantella, which was a runner-up in the CutBank Chapbook Competition. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Missouri Review, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Daily, Southern Indiana Review, TriQuarterly, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D in Poetry from Florida State University, an MFA in poetry from McNeese State University and a BA in English from Clemson University. As an undergraduate, she was a Student Director of the 5th and 6th Clemson Literary Festivals. Currently, she teaches at University of North Florida and serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor for AGNI Magazine.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:
“The Persona Poem”
The instructor will provide examples of persona poetry from contemporary poets like Patricia Smith, Ai, Frank Bidart, Alexa Doran, and others. Attendees will gain an entry point to the affordances and limitations of persona as they discuss the poems. A series of writing prompts will then help students select and inhabit, or challenge and subvert a persona in verse. Attendees will be encouraged to identify what is distinctive about their own poetic voice as they draft their persona poems, and what their unique experience might bring to a conversation with a persona.
SESSION TIMES / LOCATIONS:
10:15 - 11:15 a.m. - Screening Room (Bldg. 5)
11:30 - 12:30 p.m. - Courtyard / Book Signing
2:45 - 3:45 p.m. - Screening Room (Bldg. 5)
