Brian Thorstenson's MFA class at San Francisco State

Brian Thorstenson's MFA class at San Francisco State. The syllabus for our class was: How do we think of ourselves as part of a global superpower in 2003, on the eve of war? We discussed many ways in to this conversation, including:

Becoming aware of a stance
Considering a location
Recognizing responsibility
Bouncing our ideas off of the others in the class
Seeing how other poets do it
Use of memory and distance, use of facts
Forgiveness vs. Anger
Writing for discovery vs. witnessing with intention
Writing to remember

(back row) Giancarlo Campagna, Robin Cunningham, Teague Soderman, Mary DeNardo,  Laura Walker, Sean Mclain Brown;
(middle row) Brian Thorstenson, Jesse Nissim, Gary Kong, FarNoosh Seifoddini;Sarah Cohen, Karen Macklin, Brandon Mise (BlueBarnHouse Press), and me.