Our workshops focus on practical skills you can apply immediately to your writing
Each session includes specific exercises targeting one technical element: line breaks, rhythm, imagery, or sound patterns. You write during the session, submit drafts afterward, and get detailed feedback on what's working and what needs adjustment. No vague comments about "finding your voice" or waiting for inspiration.
We spend significant time working through actual participant poems together. You see exactly how changing a word, adjusting a line break, or removing an unnecessary stanza affects the overall piece. This isn't critique for the sake of critique—it's showing you concrete revision techniques through real examples.
We cover traditional forms like sonnets and villanelles, but the focus isn't memorizing rules. Instead, you write within constraints to understand how structure affects meaning. Once you know why a form works, you can modify it or break it intentionally rather than just ignoring it.
Our workshops run for eight weeks with two-hour sessions. Each meeting follows a consistent structure so you know what to expect and can track your progress across the course. There's no waiting around for creative moments—you're writing and revising throughout.
Sessions include direct instruction, collaborative editing, and individual writing time. You're not passively listening to lectures about poetry theory. The majority of time goes toward active practice with immediate feedback from both instructors and other participants.
Between sessions, you complete assignments focused on specific techniques we covered. These aren't open-ended "write a poem about anything" tasks. Each assignment targets a particular skill: working with metaphor, controlling pace through line length, using sound repetition effectively, or structuring narrative within verse.
Brief explanation of one poetic element with examples from various poets showing different applications
Timed writing exercise applying the technique—everyone writes simultaneously using a common prompt
Work through participant submissions from previous week, identifying what's effective and what needs work
Apply feedback to revise your own pieces while instructors circulate for one-on-one questions
Clear explanation of the week's homework focusing on specific technical skills to practice
Feedback from poets who completed the full workshop series
The revision sessions were the most valuable part. Seeing how small changes affected entire poems taught me more than any writing book I've read. I went from writing loose prose broken into lines to actually understanding how line breaks create meaning.
I appreciated the focus on specific techniques rather than abstract concepts. Each week targeted one skill, and the assignments forced me to practice it until it became natural. The feedback was direct and helpful—no vague encouragement, just concrete suggestions for improvement.