Fighting the Noise: Poetry for Mental Clarity and Calm

Fighting the Noise: Poetry for Mental Clarity and Calm
Free Virtual Writing Workshop

Join Lucky Jefferson and Corey Pressman for a free 1.5-hour virtual writing workshop designed for writers interested in combining poetry with science. 

This workshop begins with Matthew Zapruder’s insight from Why Poetry that says poetry is “a place where … we can feel protected against the constant superficial distracting noise that is the pressure of the real.” 

Public health research echoes this: chronic distraction and cognitive overload affect our well‑being, and practices that restore attention help us think clearly, regulate emotion, and stay connected to ourselves and others.

We’ll look at a simple idea from attention restoration research: our minds need moments of gentle focus to recover from constant noise. Poetry can offer that kind of focus. In this workshop, we’ll treat poetry as a small everyday practice that helps us think more clearly, feel more grounded, and stay connected to ourselves and others. In that sense, poetry becomes a quiet form of care, something that supports our well‑being and helps us move through the world with more agency and presence.

• Participants will move between brief science‑informed framing and guided poetic practices that invite them to:

• Write into the “pressure of the real” without needing to resolve it

• Create poems that function as temporary places of protection

If poetry creates even temporary protection from distraction, then poetry is not decoration. It is infrastructure.

Date: Saturday, April 11th
Time: 1PM-2:30PM CT / 2-3:30PM ET
Location: Virtual (Zoom link provided upon registration)

Corey S. Pressman, a visual artist, poet, and health educator, invites readers to break free from rigid thinking, embrace uncertainty, and cultivate a vibrant mindset.