Whether or not you believe in divination, it’s easy to see the appeal of the Tarot’s symbolism. The Tarot has been used as a common source of imagery and inspiration in poetry as far back as the 1500s! In this course, we’ll use the Tarot to encounter and apply universal themes to our writing. Each week we’ll explore a different aspect of the tarot (history, suits, major arcana, ritual, layouts, relationships, and more), and read 1-2 source texts by authors who explore these themes, including Marge Piercy, Timothy Liu, Tabitha Dial, and Rachel McGibbons. The readings will be paired with a brief experiment to guide you into the prompt, and help you “draw out” images unique to the deck you choose. Every week will also include optional viewing/listening assignments to provide multiple entry points into new work. You’ll be encouraged to post your fresh drafts if you like for light criticism and positive peer feedback in the weekly forums. By the end of class, you’ll have 7-8 fresh drafts and a number of fun ways you can use the Tarot in your writing even after the course has ended. Please have a deck you can use in the experiments and pre-writes each week before our class begins.
NO SET MEETING TIME: This workshop will take place over Moodle, which is an asynchronous forum based platform. The instructor will post a lesson and assignment every Monday, and participants have all week to log in and read the lessons/post assignments/comment on other classmates’ work. Shortly before the start date participants will receive an email with login info. Please check your spam if you don’t see it.
