Class Title: The Wonderful, Awful Stories She Had to Tell: Telling Stories Through Poetry Instructor: Lorraine Mejia-Green Class Term: We are not accepting any more enrollments for Lorraine's class; the class has started. Synopsis Learn how to tell your stories—whether wonderful or awful, and often a little of both—through the wonderful medium of poetry! Class Description We all have stories to tell, stories that must be told. Our stories are not only gifts to us, but gifts to this world. Telling your stories through poetry can be a healing, empowering, joyful process. By writing your stories, you begin to understand yourself and your world more completely. Through thoughtful writing exercises and model poems from some of the great poets of our time, Lorraine Mejia-Green will help you tap into the many stories you have to tell. All writing levels welcome. Beginning poets embraced! At the end of the class, students will be able to write their own stories through poetry with confidence; understand the importance of their stories; continue writing more poetry! Instructor will use a Yahoo group and personal email (available to students who want only her to comment on work written). There will be 3-4 books she suggests finding at a library (She'll give you a few weeks notice so you'll have time to). Other poems used in class will be found online. Outline Unit 1: Introduction & First Stories—earliest memory poems. Unit 2: First Family & First Home Stories—poems of your birth family, to include mother poems, father poems, extended family poems, and other first family stories. Poems of your first home or homes, to include landscape poems and stories of where you grew up and its importance in your life story and/or memory. Unit 3: First Love Poems & Stories of Mature Love—stories of first loves & mature love. Will not only include first "puppy" love or first true love, but also the things you remember loving as a child or young person—such wonderful stories! What do you love now? Discover the things you might not have known you love!. Unit 4: Stories of Sorrow—poems about the sorrows in your life. These stories are also often stories of healing, growth, and self-discovery. Unit 5: Stories of the World—the other important stories that you need to tell! Finding a way to continue creating, writing your stories, and bringing them to the world (whether you wish to share them only with yourself or with others!). .. Student Skills, Equipment, and Time Required All writing levels welcome. Basic Internet and computer skills needed. Ability to navigate a Yahoo group and send emails. Students will spend 2-5 hours per week (students can, of course, put in more hours, as reading and writing poetry is wonderful, and if a student has more time for it, that's great!). Tuition/Fees for this course SCN members: $160. Non-SCN members: $200. Instructor Bio Born in Minnesota to a Mexican Mother and German American father, Lorraine Mejia-Green became a marathon runner, flamenco dancer, artist, editor, librarian, educator, poet, author, and storyteller. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a MLS in Youth Librarianship. Lorraine Mejia-Green's poems have won several awards, and have appeared in anthologies such as Between the Heart and the Land/Entre el corazón y la tierra: Latina Poets of the Midwest and in literary journals including Willow Springs, Inkwell, and Calyx. She has taught poetry classes to children, teens, and adults all around the country. Visit her website. Praise for Lorraine's Classes I learned new ways of looking at my writing style of poetry. Lorraine Mejia-Green's class was very helpful with new ideas. —Jamuna A., Lorraine Mejia-Green's class on poetry writing is an excellent motivator to studying poems and getting your own poetry written. I found her comments useful and when implemented they made my poems much better. Lorraine is very accessible, you can ask her anything and she is quick to answer you via email. She is open to anything you want to talk about. It's like having a good friend see you along your writing journey. I'm sure I will be in contact with her after the course. —Renee C., Lorraine Mejia-Green's attentive red-line reviews were the reins gently leading us to confidence and individual voice, all the while honing our work. —Jazz J., Austin TX Lorraine Mejia-Green was wonderful—teacher, supporter, encourager, truthful, helpful—it is a very rich course and I hope she teaches another. —Mary S., Medford NY Due to a prior negative experience writing poetry, I enrolled in this course with a degree of fear. I did not think I could write poetry, but I wanted to learn the process so maybe someday I could try to write poetry. Lorraine Mejia-Green made me feel like my contributions really were poetry and quite acceptable. I can't tell you what this did for my self-esteem. I learned to love reading poetry and writing it also. I started the class feeling like a dunce and ended it feeling like a poet. Thank you, Lorraine. This has been the best on-line StoryCircle course yet!! —Janice K., Austin TX Appreciated the richness of the class, the poetry readings of other poets and student and Lorraine Mejia-Green's feedback. —Katharine A., Makawao HI This was a great class. I am glad that you offer a poetry class now. It had been a long time since I had written poetry. This class made me realize that I can still write. Lorraine Mejia-Green prepared excellent hand outs and an organized syllabus. She included a great variety of poets with links to specific poems and collections. —Rachel O., Richardson TX Lorraine Mejia-Green is a wonderful instructor! —Aranga F., Three Rivers CA What a gifted teacher! I learned so much with Lorraine Mejia-Green and the other women in my group! The feedback and direction were stellar! I'm signing up for the next class! —Carol Z., St. Louis MO Lorraine Mejia-Green supported our learning in this class at a very high level. She reinforced what was working in our writing and had clear suggestions to improve our poems, line-by-line. Several of us in this class will be signing up for Lorraine's next online course. What could be a better endorsement? —Ann M., Cedar Park TX Lorraine Mejia-Green is positive without being just a cheerleader. Fantastic class. —Kim C., Edmond OK