Northwest Cultural Council explores poetry of place, exile and self

The Northwest Cultural Council Second Saturday Poetry Workshop will be 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Jan. 9, at the Palatine Public Library, 700 N. North Court.

Poet Angela Narciso Torres will lead the workshop on "Poetry of Place, Exile, and the Self: Exploring Identity and the Idea of Home." Her first book, "Blood Orange," won the Willow Books Literature Award for Poetry. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manila, she serves as a senior poetry editor for RHINO.

In some sense, all exiled from their origins: whether country, family, or childhood. Writing from an autobiographical impulse, some poets ground their poems in place in order to find themselves; others, to lose themselves. How do writers displaced from their idea of "home" construct a self? The session will explore work from poets Rick Barot, Matthew Olzmann and Aimee Nezhukamatathil and how they respond to the American legacy of the confessional by using landscape/place/space to circumscribe the country of the self: both what is known and what is yet to be discovered.

All poets and writers are invited; participants are encouraged to bring 15 copies of their own work to share. The cost is $15. To RSVP or for more information, call (847) 382-6922, or email nwcc@att.net