Forms & Features with Olga Maslova

This studio is for building poems from the ground up, using myth, history, and physical detail instead of personal stories. Following the tradition of poets like Joseph Brodsky, Anne Carson, and Carl Phillips, and drawing on strategies from theater, we will work to construct immersive poetic worlds. The goal is to create emotional impact through precise, tactile work—not autobiography—assembling the conditions for a poem to ignite on its own in a spontaneous combustion.

Our process begins with an eyewitness account: Pliny’s letters on the eruption of Vesuvius. Using this as raw material, we will work with fragments, contrast, and association. Through concrete exercises, participants will explore physical textures, sounds, gestures, snippets of meaning, and memories, mapping the pressure points of a poem rather than following a linear narrative.

By the end of our time together, participants will have started a new piece that doesn’t just explain an experience, but becomes one.

This workshop is for participants aged 18 and older, of all backgrounds and experiences with reading and writing poetry.