Unless otherwise noted, all workshops are held via Zoom.
Please email jswilliams1307@gmail.com to register.
Accepted forms of payment: PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, or mailed check.
Similar to the goals of NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), the aims of this self-paced class is to write 30 poems in 30 days. However, you might write one poem a day, or several poems in a day, and then give yourself a break. It’s totally up to you!
Whether you’re writing to a specific theme, assembling a group of poems for a chapbook, or you want to try writing a longer poetic sequence, this workshop is meant to support you with generative prompts and experiences to get you creating plenty of new work.
What This Workshop Provides:
· 30 Days’ Worth of Writing Prompts
· A professional critique of all 30 poems as you send them, be it one each day or all 30 at the end of the month
· Ability to ask John writing questions any time during the month
This workshop will delve deeply into a number of Stafford’s poems, including his themes, style, and perspective, focusing on his nature, political, and compassionate poems, via active group discussion and writing prompts and some writing time to help you engage more directly with and be inspired by his work…putting his lessons into practice. And the class includes a 30-page handout!
** By request/popular demand, this is a Part 2 of Stafford’s work. So, all new poems, new activities, and some reading from his book on his poetry writing process.**
Using a rhetorical device known as ekphrasis, the poet engages with a painting, drawing, sculpture, or other form of visual art in hopes of expanding on its meaning. Poetry about music and dance might also be considered a type of ekphrastic writing.
In this workshop, we will analyze a variety of poems with unique approaches to exploring O’Keeffe’s work, including the abstract, surreal, and the deeply human. There will also be a variety of writing activities throughout and an opportunity to share your work with our small, safe group of wonderful poets! And the workshop includes a robust 50-page workbook.
This workshop will delve deeply into a number of Smith’s poems, including her themes, style, and perspective, via active group discussion and writing prompts and some writing time to help you engage more directly with and be inspired by her work…putting her lessons into practice. And the class includes a 58-page handout!
To keep you consistently inspired, writing, and honing your craft, and to keep you engaged in a passionate poetic community, this month-long workshop series is aimed at helping you see your poems in a new light, broadening your vision, and improving your mechanics. Topics likely to arise include syntax, lineation, sound and rhythm, tone and mood, use of imagery, balancing the personal and universal, and other rhetorical strategies.
We will meet in a small, intimate, trusting group in which we can be honest and supportive of each other’s work. Each poet will compose one new poem each week, and we will start each session by reading and lightly critiquing it as a group. You will also receive intensive written feedback on each poem from me prior to the session. We will then move on to mini-lessons, fresh prompts, and hopefully some writing time!
Each week you will receive an inspiring seed idea designed to trigger the creation of a poem, share ideas about the process of writing poetry, workshop one of your poems, and receive feedback from the workshop group. Then, at the end of the week, I will give you a detailed response to your poem – with praise for the places where your poem is evocative and powerful, along with suggestions for revision where the poem has not reached its full potential. My goal is to give you a deeper understanding of poetry, a deeper love of language, and a stronger mastery of the techniques which make a modern poem work. I look forward to being a catalyst to help you take the next step in your writing!
Using a rhetorical device known as ekphrasis, the poet engages with a painting, drawing, sculpture, or other form of visual art in hopes of expanding on its meaning. Poetry about music and dance might also be considered a type of ekphrastic writing.
In this workshop, we will analyze a variety of poems with unique approaches to exploring Dahlí’s work, including the abstract, surreal, political, and the deeply human. There will also be a variety of writing activities throughout and an opportunity to share your work with our small, safe group of wonderful poets! And the workshop includes a robust 50-page workbook.
Ever found yourself staring at a blank page for long periods of time, trying to write but being unable to find the right words? You’re not alone.
In this informative workshop, we will look at the reasons we all experience writer’s block, enjoy an active discussion on our own experiences with it and how we got out if it, and discover ways of overcoming it. We will also enjoy a large number of targeted writing activities to give you some practice on the various block-breaking techniques.
To keep you consistently inspired, writing, and honing your craft, and to keep you engaged in a passionate poetic community, this month-long workshop series is aimed at helping you see your poems in a new light, broadening your vision, and improving your mechanics. Topics likely to arise include syntax, lineation, sound and rhythm, tone and mood, use of imagery, balancing the personal and universal, and other rhetorical strategies.
We will meet in a small, intimate, trusting group in which we can be honest and supportive of each other’s work. Each poet will compose one new poem each week, and we will start each session by reading and lightly critiquing it as a group. You will also receive intensive written feedback on each poem from me prior to the session. We will then move on to mini-lessons, fresh prompts, and hopefully some writing time!
Each week you will receive an inspiring seed idea designed to trigger the creation of a poem, share ideas about the process of writing poetry, workshop one of your poems, and receive feedback from the workshop group. Then, at the end of the week, I will give you a detailed response to your poem – with praise for the places where your poem is evocative and powerful, along with suggestions for revision where the poem has not reached its full potential. My goal is to give you a deeper understanding of poetry, a deeper love of language, and a stronger mastery of the techniques which make a modern poem work. I look forward to being a catalyst to help you take the next step in your writing!
Poetry is witness, and what better location to witness than at the kitchen table? Ingredients, recipes, and rituals of honoring are a celebration and a meditation. Mealtimes hold us, as well as history. Every morsel is an activation process; stories have been buried within our pots and pans. Flavors serve as a platter of beginnings and endings of relationships, cultures, identities, memory, medicine, and bodies.
We will study food poems exploring our families, culture, what brings us comfort, and so much more! We will also study work by Li-Young Lee, Maxine Kumin, Chen Chen, Francine J. Harris, Galway Kinnell, Kevin Young, and other poets who explore the intimate relationship between eating and the soul.
From food to family, the weather to spirituality, giving thanks to taking stock of your life, the holidays mean different things to different people. We’ll read works by poets spanning different literary traditions, exploring a diverse range of perspectives and approaches, to see how they view the holidays, including traditions and rituals and family dynamics, as well as culture and a touch of politics. We will read poems from the likes of Jane Kenyon, Joy Harjo, Galway Kinnell, Rae Armantrout, Ted Kooser, Longfellow, and many others.
As always, there will also be a variety of writing activities throughout and an opportunity to share your work with our small, safe group of wonderful poets! And the workshop includes a robust workbook.
Grayed in by inky light. Deep shadow and chill. Hearth and love. Beginnings and endings. There’s just something about winter that brings out both melancholy and heartfelt joy in equal measure.
In this intensive generative workshop, we will explore the many facets of writing winter poems through poetry analysis, active discussion, and a progressively challenging set of writing activities that touch upon both our internal/personal worlds and how we interact with the larger world around us.
We will study diverse poems from contemporary poets such as Natalie Diaz, Ross Gay, Danez Smith, Tomas Transtromer, Mary Oliver, Linda Pastan, and many more to see how they successfully explore themselves and the world through winter poems.