Artist in Residence: Lauren Camp (16+) Writing a Pantoum Workshop

The ancient pantoum is the ideal form for writing about the past. With a little direction, even uncertain writers are eased into shaping their crystalline memories, and more experienced writers will have the chance to delve into subjects that might not have opened up for them before. In this workshop, Lauren will offer brief historical background on the form, then lead students in an idea-generating exercise that will produce the raw material for each student’s unique pantoum. She will also provide tips for how to craft a good pantoum line—a line that can shift in meaning over the course of the poem. Students will begin to see the juxtaposition and reverberation of sound and themes. Excitement builds quickly as students follow the form through to its ending. Open to all levels. 

Residency Plan: 
At Bethany Arts Community, Lauren anticipates being able to complete work on a manuscript that explores the spirit and art of abstract painter Agnes Martin within the context of recent politics, social upheaval, and the onset of the poet’s father’s dementia. 

Bio:
Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press), which received the American Fiction Award in Poetry. Other honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Housatonic Book Award, North American Book Award, and New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Poem-a-Day, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and Beloit Poetry Journal, and has been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic.  

An emeritus fellow of the Black Earth Institute, she has received support from Storyknife Writers Retreat, Denver Botanic Gardens, and the Taft-Nicholson Center. In 2018, she was a visiting scholar/poet at the Mayo Clinic, sharing poems of dementia with physicians and research scientists, and she will be Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park in 2022. 

Lauren has guest edited issues of: Malpaís Review (poetry of Iraq), World Literature Today (two issues: international jazz poetry, and the intersection of contemporary visual art and poetry), About Place Journal (“Roots and Resistance”), and Ilanot Review (“Earth”).  

Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press), which received the American Fiction Award in Poetry. She also teaches for Hugo House and Hudson Valley Writers Center.