Getting Inside Others’ Skin in Poetry and Prose - February 12th

Getting Inside Others’ Skin in Poetry and Prose

How do we get out of our own sensibilities and understand the perspective of those who may show up in our writing, such as a younger version of ourselves or one of our family members? In this workshop, we’ll examine poems and passages that effectively take us out of the writer’s experience and into someone else’s. Then we’ll use some of the techniques we discover to write sketches or poems of our own.

Ingrid is inspired by the wild nature of California, her writing students, her children, and poets such as Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Ellen Bass, Tracy K. Smith, Indigo Moor, and Molly Fisk. When it comes to writing poetry, she believes in Richard Hugo’s advice: “You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.” Her philosophy about the creative process is that we must always be aware of its two-fold nature: first comes the expression itself, and that must be recognized as something quite fragile. Then, ideally, the sharing of that writing can follow. The value of critiques and support from a community of fellow writers cannot be underestimated, and Ingrid deeply values the inspiration and guidance she receives from other writers in Nevada County and beyond.

Ingrid’s collection of poetry, It Started with the Wild Horses, explores how our experiences and relationships become memory; how encountering the wilderness outside our doors shapes us; and how a sense of place tells us who we are. Readers travel from Greece to California, from the Sierra Nevada to the rivers of Washington, from adolescence to parenthood, from classroom to orchard, and from grief to hope.