Classes & Workshops

In this small, individually focused workshop, we’ll work together to reinvigorate our practice and refine our craft, with a focus on understanding what each poem wants to become and how it might get there. Get personalized feedback, reading recommendations, mini craft talks, and an understanding of what it’s like to make things and how writers tend to get stuck (and unstuck), in the company of a community of others committed to doing this strange and wonderful thing. 

Ongoing; choice of one or two monthly meetings 
Set of six 2.5- to 3-hour meetings $525
Starts January, April, July, October

The most powerful poems are sui generis – and each of us has aspects of our work that are like no one else’s. We’ll work together to explore and expand the terrain of our work, through the lenses of our personal aesthetic(s) and obsessions. We’ll practice multiple ways of using these factors to inspire new directions, generate new work, offer more productive and authentic feedback, and ultimately help you generate the compelling, distinctive poems that only you can write.

One 3-hour meeting $100
Two 3-hour meetings $180

A great title can draw the reader into a poem, guide the way, and open it up—sometimes all at once. But poems can also be undercut by vague or lackluster titling, and many writers aren’t sure how or where to begin. In this three-hour workshop, we’ll explore the relationships between poems and their titles, discuss several intriguing examples, then play with techniques for titling our own work. Bring 5–10 poem drafts to work with during class.

One 3-hour meeting $100
Two 3-hour meetings $180

Intermediate/Advanced | For poets working in so-called free verse, the shape of a poem is a question that must be asked with every new piece. In this class, we’ll explore techniques for exploring, developing, and refining poetic form. What are the effects of our choices? Bring three poems in progress; we’ll use discussion, reading, and formal play to help each poem find the shape it wants to take.

Two 3-hour meetings $180

The poetic you can be notoriously slippery—pointing to speaker, reader, or beloved, to “one” or the Other. Combine that slipperiness with the ability to change (and be changed by) the poem’s voice and syntax, and the second person becomes a powerful tool for poets interested in the speaker’s relationships with reader, self, and other. In this class, we’ll use discussion, close reading, and writing exercises to explore the many possibilities (and a few pitfalls) of you.

One 3-hour meeting $100
Two 3-hour meetings $180

How do you know when you’re ready to put together a poetry manuscript—and where do you start? We’ll approach manuscript-making from the inside out, using curiosity and serious play to listen in on what our poems have to say to each other. We’ll explore frameworks for thinking about sequence and structure, including what the arc of a series or book can tell us about individual poems, and practice techniques for writing and revising with a manuscript in mind. 

Two 3-hour meetings $180

You’re ready to send out your work. But where should you send it—and how? Whether you’re submitting poems to journals for the first time or returning tot he fray, learning how to order and present your work can give you a deeper understanding of how that work is received – and of how to foreground what sets your poems apart. 

You’ll emerge with an ordered packet of five poems to send to the journal of your choice, and a set of effective tools and practices.

Two 3-hour meetings $180

Especially in times of uncertainty, it’s all too easy to become separated from our creative spark. In this 3-hour weekend workshop, we’ll use guided meditation, visualization, and writing exercises to identify and soften our own particular versions of resistance, and to reconnect with the parts of us that use language to create. Before the end of class, we’ll discuss what we’ve brought to the surface, emerging with concrete plans for diving back into the heart of our work.

One 3-hour meeting $100

When generating new poems, it’s easy to fall into the habit of going back to the same well, never considering the possibility of multiple watersheds. Together, we’ll explore a wide range of techniques for generating poems that are uniquely yours. We’ll draw on our own and others’ poems; practice initiating, guiding, and expanding drafts; develop a repertoire of starting points beyond topic and image; and share our work with an eye to opening it up to further invention. You’ll emerge with a sheaf of fresh poems and a collection of tools for generating new material.

Six 2.5-hour meetings $480
Starts winter 2025

Writing is revising, goes the familiar saying. But often we take a first draft, in whatever form it arrives, and chip away at it until it looks something like a poem. Yet revision has the potential to be a much more radical and creative act. In this class, we’ll explore multiple techniques for re-visioning and revising poems, with the goal of helping each poem discover what it wants to become. You’ll have a chance to workshop 3 of your poems, emerging with 8 to 12 substantial revisions and a range of revision tools.

Six 2.5-hour meetings $480
Starts spring 2025

In this workshop, you’ll put together a chapbook manuscript to submit to publishers or self-publish. We’ll explore structural and stylistic possibilities, how chapbooks differ from full-length collections, and techniques for writing with a series or larger project in mind. Next we’ll discuss two award-winning chapbooks (which you’re encouraged to read in advance), practice hands-on structuring, ordering, and titling exercises, and bring what you’ve learned to create an initial manuscript of 8–24 pages ready for submission or self-publishing. 

Six 2.5-hour meetings $480
Starts fall 2025