Not everything we draft becomes a poem. When something does, it will be because the words start to surprise us, and the body of them becomes wiser than we are. Like good parents, poets need to respect their poems for having lives of their own—and the best reason for improving our craft is to have “the game” to take our poems where they need to go. “The car invented the motel,” said my teacher Stephen Dunn, and in much the same way, poems creates the poet. 

This workshop will be a six-week immersion in generating and shaping poems—in the presence of an acclaimed poet and teacher known for generously sharing her practice. There will be assignments, models, craft talks, and weekly feedback.