Faculty News
January 2007
Guenette gives poetry invention workshop at Illinois Wesleyan
 Matt Guenette will bring his bag of "invention" techniques to the Illinois Wesleyan University "Tongue & Ink" Creative Writing Conference Feb. 23 and 24.
The MATC English and creative writing instructor will give a workshop about poetry invention techniques for conference participants who are looking for new ways of creating or teaching poetry.
Guenette plans to present a plethora of poetry invention techniques. For instance, one technique consists of an unusual question-and-answer sequence that challenges the writer's poetic boundaries. This technique, which he calls the "Surreal Questionaire," occurs when a group of poets write surreal questions on notecards. These notecards are then circulated around the group and other group members are asked to answer the surreal questions.
When about a dozen questions are answered on a notecard, that notecard is then given to one person. It is that person's task, then, to write a narrative poem based on the answers to these questions.
The answers are as surprising as the questions, Guenette said. He remembered one student's question: "Can you name something you only do at two in the morning?" One response to that question, he said, was this: "Leave obscene notes under park benches."
Guenette said that this technique shows students that they can create poetry from a perspective or mindset that is new, or maybe not their own. Too many student poets write only from their own feelings, he added, which can limit their artistic options.
"This exercise is a way to get students to stop writing only what they feel," he explained, "and to start writing things they maybe didn't feel. It is a way to find new context."
Guenette uses this technique, and others, in the creative writing courses he teaches at MATC. He also relies on these invention techniques for his own creative work.
Recently, Guenette's chapbook of poems, Hush of Something Endless, was published by Ropewalk Press. His poem titled "Vince Neil's Marathon Training Schedule" will soon be published in Pindeldyboz. Southern Indiana Review also plans to publish some of Guenette's work.
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