Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) is a touchstone of 20th century poetry. His concepts of duende and deep song, and his theories about imagination and creativity and poetry, enacted in his poems and expressed in his legendary lectures, have had an immense and lasting influence on poets around the world.
Lorca’s poems are mysterious and clear. He wrote, “Poetry is like faith – it isn’t meant to be understood but to be received in a state of grace. No one should say ‘this is clear,’ because poetry is obscure. And no one should say ‘this is obscure,’ because poetry is clear …. What poetry cannot bear is indifference. Indifference is the devil’s armchair. But it is indifference we hear babbling in the streets, dressed grotesquely in self-satisfaction and culture.”
In this short course we will combat indifference, by engaging energetically with Lorca’s poetry and prose. We will explore the mysteries of his poetry, and also how his ideas about poetry can help us read, write, imagine and understand. We will celebrate the life and poetry of a great artist, who, though murdered by fascists, lives on.
Register Here
Register for the 2026 Season Pass
Register for all four one-night courses only: Spring 2026 Collection
Dates & Times: Online Sundays from March 10 to April 7, 2026. Main sessions run from 4 pm-6 pm (Pacific) with optional discussion groups to follow.
- Tuesday March 10, 2026 4:00-6:00 PT / 7:00-9:00 ET
- Tuesday, March 17, 2027 4:00-6:00 PT / 7:00-9:00 ET
- Tuesday March 24, 2026 4:00-6:00 PT / 7:00-9:00 ET
- Tuesday March 31, 2026 4:00-6:00 PT / 7:00-9:00 ET
- Tuesday April 7, 2026 4:00-6:00 PT / 7:00-9:00 ET (Bonus Session)
Note: For those who are interested, intimate Zoom discussion groups (Virtual Houses) will meet after each session and on subsequent Saturdays at 10 AM.
Course Text
Participants who don’t own the text are asked to purchase it, if possible, before March 10. For this course, our text will be:
Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca
ISBN-13: 9780811221627
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publish Date: 02/01/2014
Handouts for each session will be posted online. Additional reading materials, including essays and poems will be added.
Recommended Texts:
Lorca, A Dream of Life, Leslie Stainton
Deep Song and Other Prose, New Directions
In Search of Duende, ed. Christopher Maurer, New Directions
Bios
Victoria Chang’s most recent book of poems is With My Back to the World, published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the U.S. and Corsair/Little Brown in the U.K. It received the Forward Prize in Poetry for Best Collection and was named a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the PEN Jean/Stein Book Award. OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was also a finalist for the Griffin International Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as longlisted for the National Book Award. Other recent books include The Trees Witness Everything and her nonfiction book, Dear Memory. She has written several children’s books as well and Eureka is forthcoming from FSG Books for Young Readers in 2026. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Chowdhury International Prize in Literature, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and Director of Poetry@Tech.
Matthew Zapruder is the author most recently of the poetry collections I Love Hearing Your Dreams (Scribner, 2024), and How to Continue (The Economy Press, 2025), and five previous collections of poetry, including Father’s Day, Sun Bear, and Come on All You Ghosts, as well as Why Poetry (Ecco/Harper Collins) and Story of a Poem (Unnamed). He is editor at large at Wave Books, where he edits contemporary poetry, prose, and translations. From 2016-17 he held the annually rotating position of Editor of the Poetry Column for the New York Times Magazine, and was the Guest Editor for Best American Poetry 2022. He lives in the Bay Area of California, where he teaches in the MFA in creative writing at Saint Mary’s College of California, and plays music with The Figments and We Are Leaves. matthewzapruder.com
What to Expect:
- Five, two-hour weekly sessions online with assigned reading. The group can be large, depending on the course.
- In the first hour, Victoria and Matthew will close read the assigned poems by Lorca for the class, giving background and context, and linking the poems with key concepts in Lorca’s poetic cosmology (duende, deep song, the particular qualities of the poetic imagination) in order to deepen our readings.
- In the second half of each session, Victoria and Matthew will address questions and widen the discussion. Participant questions and comments will be submitted in the chat.
- Optional small (8-10 person) discussion groups will be available to those with the energy and interest after the formal session is over.
- The main sessions will be recorded, and will be available for later viewing by registered participants for 30 days following the final session
Tuition:
- Early Bird Tuition is $270. The Early Bird Deadline is Thursday, February 26, 2026.
- Standard Tuition is $300.
- Limited financial aid available. Please contact us if needed.
- Season Pass and other packages available here. (link coming soon)
Register Here
Register for the 2026 Season Pass
Register for all four one-night courses only: Spring 2026 Collection
The Writers Annex
Online, and year-round, The Writers’ Annex is composed of short courses, seminars, workshops, and more. Our vision is to bring the creative insight and experience of our staff poets and prose writers to our community in all seasons, not just in the summertime, and not just here in our Valley. Our online offerings will address such topics as eco-poetics, translation, and generative sessions. Some will be one or two days, some will be weekend intensives, and some will meet weekly for a month or two. In addition, we hope these offerings will help offset the tremendous expenses we face as an organization for our traditional in-person events in Olympic Valley. Join our Mailing List