Hudson Valley Writers Center

The hypothesis of this class is that poems, like music, require both order and disorder, pattern and variation, elements which cause them to cohere, and elements which (almost) cause them to fly apart. The corollary hypothesis is that poems can go off the rails from too much of either quality. We’ll explore which specific craft elements tend to create order, which disorder, and look at some poems in which an order seems to arise organically from the materials, versus some…

Is there something bugging you that’s been brewing for a while? Something under your skin itching to get out? Perhaps it’s a persistent memory that awakens you in the night, a pet peeve, recurring image, or long-forgotten memory triggered by a song, smell, or chance encounter. Or something you were warned not to say, or swore never to reveal? This workshop is an opportunity to give voice and form to the elusive and forbidden, and to exorcise the phantoms that haunt you, even if you don’t yet know…

This workshop focuses on the art of editing, and offers techniques that help writers re-enter that old friend, the poem that’s almost finished, with renewed creative energy. The one you’ve read and reread, and tweaked and put in the drawer. Each poet can bring in any poem they wish, even a new one. Bring in a piece (up to one full page) that’s almost there, but perhaps has been rejected by one journal or more that you respect. The intention is to bring fresh…

We are and radically are not our childhood selves. This workshop will look at poets including Yusef Komunyakaa, Larry Levis, Simon J Ortiz and Lucille Clifton and consider how poets handle life transitions--being one person today, someone wildly different tomorrow--in a coherent (or deliberately broken) arc? Do poets remain faithful to the way they saw as children? This workshop is interactive within the constraints of class size--there will be space for a free write and discussion of participants' own work".…

In this four hour, generative workshop, we will undertake a series of writing exercises that break the spell of the blank page, and which provide new strategies for making poems out of both imagined and lived experiences.  We will also discuss ways of returning to a state of meditative expectancy conducive to writing poetry, daily practices that will bring writers to the page with a sense of wonder and joy.  We will write together, share some of what we have…

When the sense runs over the end of a line, we call the line enjambed, and the practice of enjambment. Reading poetry aloud, we pause slightly at the end of a line, or sometimes raise our voices, or hold the last syllable. These pauses are uneven; when the line is end-stopped the pauses may be longer. But the voice often is the way we know we're reading poetry and not prose. This seminar will examine how enjambed lines retain their…

The Bop is a form of poetic argument consisting of three stanzas, each followed by a repeated line or refrain. The first stanza is six lines and presents a problem; the second stanza is eight lines and further expands upon the problem; and the third stanza is six lines and either resolves or documents the failure of resolving the problem. Read a Bop poem by Afaa Michael Weaver, who created the form during a Cave Canem writing retreat and learn…

Poetry professor and guru, Rachel Hadas, will teach a craft class & workshop on the sonnet via Zoom. Class size is capped at 12 students. Zoom login instructions will be emailed at the time of workshop registration. Please check spam filters or email [email protected] with questions. There are two free Altman Persons of Color Scholarships available on a first come, first served basis. Please register for no more than one per month per student. Let HVWC know immediately if your…

Join award-winning poet, professor, and director of the Colrain Manuscript Conference, Joan Houlihan, as she teaches a one-day craft class on the importance of revision. NB: This class will be taught via Zoom and capped at 15. Register right away because Joan's classes always sell out. This class will be taught online using Zoom. Login instructions will be emailed at the time of workshop registration. Please check spam filters or email [email protected] with questions. More than any of the other writing arts, poetry…

In honor of the much-awaited publication of 100 Poems to Break Your Heart by Edward Hirsch (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (March 30, 2021), the Hudson Valley Writers Center has asked Hirsch to teach a craft class on writing poems that transform grief into art. Implicit in poetry is the idea that we are enriched by heartbreaks, by the recognition and understanding of suffering—not just our own suffering but also the pain of others. We are not so much diminished as enlarged by…