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The Sound is the Gold

Taught by David Mason


Community Workshop: Open to all – no Duke affiliation required!]

When
  • Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 5:30pm
Where

Arts Annex
404 Gattis Street
Durham, NC 27701

Venue Details
Notes

Registration for this workshop will open on Friday, April 10.

The Sound is the Gold

Taught by David Mason

Community Workshop: Open to all – no Duke affiliation required!

The best poems often communicate before they are understood. They have an unparaphrasable magic, a quality of enchantment and surprise that sets them apart from ordinary speech. This may have to do with such things as metre and rhyme, with dramatic voice, or simply with uncanny couplings of words. Our workshop takes its lead from this nugget by Robert Frost: “The sound is the gold in the ore.” Guided by the example of some exceptional poems, we will work through several exercises focussed on letting sound deepen us into veins of thought we may never have reached on our own.

Meet the Instructor

David Mason

The former poet laureate of Colorado, David Mason grew up in Washington State and now lives in Tasmania, the island state of Australia. His many books include Ludlow, an award-winning …

More Info

Duke Arts Create is a series of free, hands-on arts workshops designed to help all Duke students, including graduate and professional students (including Duke Health), as well as Duke faculty and staff develop a variety of creative skills in the visual arts, dance and movement, creative writing and more. Workshops are open to all skill levels and backgrounds. Most workshops are held in the Duke Arts Annex, the Rubenstein Arts Center or the Duke Arts Office 2101 and are typically held weeknights from 6-8 p.m.

Registration for the following week’s Duke Arts Create workshops go live on Friday morning at 9 a.m. – sign up in advance to guarantee your spot. Didn’t get a spot? No problem! We always reserve space for walk-ins and waitlist registers. Email DukeCreate@duke.edu if you have any questions. Sign up for the monthly newsletter here, which includes the full list of classes offered during the following month.

Duke Arts Create is sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts (Duke Arts).

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