University of Iowa

Susan Aizenberg

Susan Aizenberg is the author of three poetry collections: Quiet City (BkMk Press 2015); Muse (Crab Orchard Poetry Series 2002); and Peru in Take Three: 2/AGNI New Poets Series (Graywolf Press 1997). A new chapbook, First Light, is forthcoming from Gibraltar Press in 2020 in a limited, letterpress edition. Aizenberg is co-editor, with Erin Belieu, of The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women (Columbia University Press 2001). Her awards include a Crab Orchard Poetry Series Award, the Levis Reading Prize, a Distinguished Artist Fellowship from the Nebraska Arts Council, the Nebraska Book Award, and the Mari Sandoz Award from the Nebraska Library Association. Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals, among them Blackbird, Bosque, The American Journal of Poetry, The North American Review, Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Connotation Press, and The Journal, and have been reprinted in several anthologies, most recently, A Constellation of Kisses (Terrapin Press 2019). Aizenberg is Professor Emerita of Creative Writing and English at Creighton University and now lives and writes in Iowa City.

Instructor Events

Working with Imagery: A Generative Poetry Workshop

Weekend July 13 to July 14 2019
Instructor(s): 
Susan Aizenberg

Imagery—the recreation of sensory experience through language—is one of the key elements of poetic craft, and surprisingly, frequently among the hardest to master. Most of us are familiar with Pound’s famous dictum, “Go in fear of abstractions,” and of course that old saw, “Show, don’t tell,” yet it can be challenging to put these concepts into practice or to understand why they are so important.

Writing Alone Together: A Week-Long Retreat for Generating New Poems

Weeklong July 21 to July 26 2019
Instructor(s): 
Susan Aizenberg

We all know that writing poems is a solitary activity, but it’s often exhilarating and useful to generate work toward new poems by responding to “no-fault” prompts and exercises together in a supportive and energizing group of fellow poets. We’ll spend our week doing just that: free-writing together in class in response to proven prompts designed to inspire new poems or new ideas for poems on which we’ve been working.