Lost Horse Press will host a poetry writing workshop entitled FINDING THE AUTHENTIC VOICE: Strategies for Accommodating Narrative to the Lyric Impulse—featuring poet Christopher Howell. The Workshop will take place at Oden Hall from 6 pm until 8 pm on Friday, 16 September and from 10 am until 5 pm on Saturday, 17 September 2005. Cost of the workshop is $100 cash, check or money order. A Reading by Christopher Howell—free and open to the public—will take place at 7 pm on Saturday evening at Oden Hall. To register for the workshop or to request additional information, please contact Lost Horse Press at 208.255.4410, email losthorsepress@mindspring.com.

Two poems are both very well written, yet one sounds natural (authentic) and the other sounds stilted and contrived; why? How can the sense of tonal contrivance be overcome? These are the questions the course will address by means of workshop, lecture, discussion, and writing exercises. Students must bring four poems, writing materials, and a copy of one poem (by anyone) that, in their judgment, is completely convincing.

Christopher Howell’s ten collections of poems include the recent Just Waking from Lost Horse Press. He has received fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Massachusetts Council for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Howell’s poems have appeared in such journals as Antioch Review, Colorado Review, Field, Harper’s, Hudson Review, Iowa Review, North American Review, Poetry Northwest, and Gettysburg Review, and have been awarded the Pushcart Prize three times. He has taught at Colorado State University, Willamette University, Whitman College, Emporia State University, and Oregon State University, and teaches now in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University. Since 1975, he has been director and principal literary editor for Lynx House Press.