If you’re one of the many Terroir attendees who dreams in images, meter, and metaphor, you’re going to be really excited about our lineup for this year’s festival. It’s time to meet our poets!
Emmett Wheatfall lives in Portland, Oregon. He is one of Oregon’s esteemed African American poets. Emmett has several published books of poetry and albums featuring poetic verse to music. He is known nationally and internationally for his poetics.
Workshop: Diction: The Precursor to Syntax and Stich
Beginning in kindergarten children who will one day become adults are taught how to write. Writing represents the next step in human communication. At the heart of this evolution comes the preservation of human knowledge. Humans learn a set of alphabets wherewith each letter is used to form a word(s). In literature diction is used to reference a word or phrase. Diction is an essential element necessary for written composition. What remains for the writer is the stich, that being a line of verse or sentence. This 1-hour workshop is designed to explore and engage in the power of diction and words as a precursor to syntax and stich. emmettwheatfall.com
Barbara Drake
Barbara Drake’s creative writing has appeared in numerous magazines and in anthologies such as Varieties of Hope: An Anthology of Oregon Prose (OSU Press), Poets of the American West (Many Voices Press), The Plain Truth of Things (Harper Collins), Citadel of the Spirit (Oregon Sesquicentennial), Poets on Place (U. of Utah Press) and others. Her most recent books include both poetry, Driving One Hundred and The Road to Lilac Hill (Windfall Press) and creative nonfiction, Morning Light and Peace at Heart (OSU Press).
Workshop: Writing Ekphrastic Poetry—Visual Art as Writing Prompt and Subject
Is there a painting or some other visual art that you love, one that you remember or identify with or one that leaves you uncomfortable or puzzled? A new image that invites exploring? This workshop will practice ways of writing poems about the visual arts. Using close observation and description, emotional response, personal memory and more, we will experiment with writing ekphrastic poetry. Sample images of art will be provided. If you prefer, you may bring an image of your own, such as a favorite printed copy of artwork copied from a book, magazine, or online. barbaradrakepoet.com
Kim Stafford
Kim Stafford writes, teaches, and travels to restore the human spirit. He has published a dozen books, including As the Sky Begins to Change (Red Hen Press, 2024), and has taught writing in Scotland, Italy, Mexico, and Bhutan. In 2018 he was named Oregon Poet Laureate for a two-year term.
Workshop: Earth Verse: Writing Poems for the Earth
When trouble comes in the human world, there may be a little story from the wild that can offer consolation. From the Gnomic Verses in Old English, to the Tao te Ching, and the writings of Dorothy Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, and Mary Oliver, we have cherished lyric remedies speaking the language of earth for human comfort. In this workshop, we will harvest close observations from your personal landscapes, and compose an archive of consolations and blessings. kimstaffordpoet.com
Terroir Creative Writing Festival 