Billy Corgan supports local young poets with workshop in Highland Park

Rockstar Billy Corgan sat quietly at the head of the table last Wednesday at Secret World Books in Highland Park. 

He listened to each teenager, one by one around the table, read their prepared poems.

The Smashing Pumpkins frontman, along with author and Secret World Books owner Gayle Brandeis, led 10 teens in a poetry workshop on June 24, telling The Record the program’s main objective was to create a safe space for young people to share their work. 

“I think part of being an artist … is declaring your work into the public space,” Corgan said. “So for many, maybe this will be the first time to actually own the opportunity. And the point here is it’s a safe space.”

Brandeis opened the workshop by giving the students a prompt. She provided a list of various allergens and asked the participants to choose a word that “itched” them. 

For five minutes, the room was silent, other than the sounds of pencils scratching against notebook paper. Corgan and Brandeis participated, too.

In 2004, Corgan published the poetry book “Blinking With Fish.” A Highland Park resident, Corgan is a regular at Secret World. Months ago, Brandeis asked him if he’d be interested in teaching a poetry workshop. 

The workshop was the second that Brandeis and Corgan hosted together this year. While the first session drew 24 teenagers, Brandeis said she wanted the second one to be more intimate, a way for students to receive individualized attention on their craft.

Coming out of the first workshop in May, Brandeis said participants learned how to be “the biggest authorities of their own work.”

“Even if you hear a lot of ‘nos’ or ‘not yets,’ keep working on developing your craft, keep working on letting your voice become the truest and fullest and most authentic it can be,” Brandeis said. “I think that’s something that was really interesting to hear from Billy … that the public facing stuff can be very satisfying in itself, but the true satisfaction comes from the creative process.”

Fourteen-year-old Charlotte Nero participated in the May workshop as an aspiring poet. In that session, she said she learned to not be ashamed of her writing and hoped in the more-recent session to have more questions answered.

Nero said she is a big fan of the Smashing Pumpkins and plans on seeing the band perform in October. 

“It’s really cool to see my favorite singer, speak to him and understand how he writes songs and stuff like that,” Nero said.

After the writing exercise, each student shared something they wrote on their own time to the class. The students gave each other feedback and asked questions about each piece. Corgan provided his thoughts to each individual, offering advice and different exercises that could potentially help strengthen their writing.

Corgan said experiences like this are how students grow to be better creatives. 

“When you get young people together in an analog experience like D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) or this little poetry class, kids are so thirsty for real experience,” Corgan said. 

He explained that when he was a child, he would play outside for hours with sticks, trees and rubber balls. He said he hopes the experience of a screen-free workshop helps provide a similar experience. 

“Young people need to have experiences outside their environment that inspire them to understand that there’s a big world out there,” he said, “and unless they really go out and physically, emotionally and experience in a tactile way, they’re really missing out on the best part of life.”

For Brandeis, who opened the bookstore with her husband Michael Brandeis in 2024, the workshop had a special meaning.

Brandeis grew up on the North Shore until moving to California for college. She recalled crying while listening to the Smashing Pumpkins album “Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness,” because she missed Chicago so much.

“I never thought that I would move back, and then get to know the person who wrote those songs that made me cry, and then get to teach classes with him,” Brandeis said. “ … I never could have dreamed (this) would happen in my life. This bookstore has just really created all sorts of magical little surprises for us, and I love that it can be a space of inspiration and connection.”

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