Why Defend the Kingdom of Dullness? A Poetry Workshop with Matt Cook

Saturday, October 3, 2015 - 10 am-4 pm

Presented in collaboration with Woodland Pattern Book Center.

Register online now.

Fee: $65/$60 for members of Lynden or Woodland Pattern (one discount only).
Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. If you prefer to register by phone, call 414-446-8794.

Lynden Sculpture Garden & Woodland Pattern Book Center are excited to host Milwaukee Poet Laureate Matt Cook as our fall writer-in-residence. For his weekend residency, Matt will give a reading at Woodland Pattern on Friday evening, October 2, and conduct a writing workshop at Lynden on Saturday, October 3.

Why Defend the Kingdom of Dullness?
Saturday, October 3, 10 am-4 pm
at Lynden Sculpture Garden
2145 W. Brown Deer Rd.
Milwaukee, WI 53217

It’s a rhetorical question. It’s actually Kenneth Koch’s rhetorical question, but that’s not the point. The point is not to defend the kingdom of dullness. But don’t worry, in this workshop I will not judge how dull you are, and it wouldn’t matter if I did: some extraordinarily dull writers are hugely successful. And it’s important to remember that they got successful by not listening to people like me! Still, I think I’m pretty snappy and I’ve been writing and thinking and talking about poetry for a long time. Anyway, come to Lynden and we'll write some poems. Then we'll try to say some smart things about them with the hope of amusing ourselves and perhaps even making the poems better. And if we don’t come up anything good, we’ll read a few poems by writers who have.

About Matt Cook

Matt Cook earned a Master's Degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Memphis, and lectured extensively at both universities. He’s the author of four books of poetry: In the Small of My Backyard, Eavesdrop Soup, The Unreasonable Slug, and most recently, Proving Nothing to Anyone from Publishing Genius Press. His work has been anthologized in Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poet’s Café, The United States of Poetry, and in Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems, American Places. Many of his poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on National Public Radio, and Cook himself has performed his poetry on television and radio. He appeared in the five-part PBS series The United States of Poetry. He lives in Milwaukee, WI where he is currently serving as Milwaukee Poet Laureate.

Related Events

Reading: Matt Cook
at Woodland Pattern Book Center
720 E. Locust Street
Friday, October 2, 7 pm

$8 General | $7 Students & Seniors | $6 WPBC Members
Free to workshop participants.


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