PSNY Virtual Workshop: Reclaiming Truth in Poetry

An all-levels generative virtual workshop with poet Sarah V. Schweig!

Plato banished poets from his ideal republic because he believed that poetry's fictive and emotive qualities obscured truth. Some people—even poets—still believe that poetry’s strength lies in subjective self-expression. In this generative workshop, we will break back into the republic by reclaiming truth claims in poetry. We will write poems that are universally true—or we will try. We will read poets and short excerpts from philosophers alike. Our exercises will experiment with escaping first-person statements to make more objective claims, taking to heart the deep consequences of such truth-telling, as June Jordan said: “Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.”

About the Instructor: Sarah V. Schweig's second book, The Ocean in the Next Room, won the Jake Adam York Prize and was published by Milkweed Editions in 2025. Her first book, Take Nothing with You, was published by the University of Iowa Press as part of the Kuhl House Poets series. She is also the author of the chapbook S (Dancing Girl Press). Her poetry and criticism has appeared in Boston Review, Granta, Public Seminar, Tin House, Tourniquet Review, the Yale Review, and elsewhere. She is working on her PhD dissertation in philosophy at The New School for Social Research on the value of poetry. She lives in Maine with her husband and son.

**This workshop will take place on Zoom.**