Workshops

"In poetry you have a form looking for a subject and a subject looking for a form," writes W.H. Auden.In this workshop we'll try out several twenty-first century poetic forms such as the Bop, the Golden Shovel, and the Fib to see how form itself can influence and inspire what we feel an urgency to […]

This four-hour workshop will begin with an hour-long discussion of mostly inanimate (but also some living) objects or “things”: how to pay attention to them, how to use them in poems. We’ll explore several published poems that feature such “things”—as compelling descriptive details, as metaphors, as speakers (or addressees), and as other (sometimes quirky) occupiers […]

“History is the function of any one of us,” Charles Olson once said. In this workshop we will consider the poet as a witness to history and poetry as document. We will read and discuss poets from various periods in order to understand how their cultural moment impacted their writing and what impact their writing […]

In A Little Book on Form, Robert Hass names one definition of poetic form as the “external shape” of a poem. How do we utilize that first moment of encounter—when the reader first approaches the page, seeing the poem before they read it—to communicate meaning? In this craft class, we’ll explore the visual decisions that […]

When it comes to revision habits, Time and Procrastination don’t need to be your worst enemies. Sometimes the best thing to do after you’ve written a draft is to put it immediately aside–and then not come back to it for many moons, even years! This workshop will seek to bring new light and energy to […]