Poetry is often shrouded in mystery. A French poet, Paul Valéry, called the poetic language "a language within a language." This one-hour long workshop explores a list poem as a pathway to poetics for anyone who wants to feel more confident with words and tune into their soft power.

Language in general is a vehicle for thought but poetry travels faster to the outer edges of the known. It allows you to bend the fundamentals of logic and reality.

Everyone has a natural connection to the sounds and rhythms of language. It's part of our senses and lives in our nervous system. While rhetorical tricks and formal techniques are infinite, we don't need to know all of them to start writing. We'll come together to figure out what we know and don't know about any of this. We'll look at and listen to some generative forms and practice bending our own words, collaboratively and individually.

Tanya Rubbak is a graphic designer, poet, and design teacher. She lives in Los Angeles and is an assistant professor of Graphic Design at Otis College of Art and Design.