Dying to take a class at the Poetry Center? Good news—we have six stellar classes around the corner!
Take a class with our renowned guest writers and leave inspired, new writing in-hand. Writers of all levels are invited to apply for these upcoming classes at the Poetry Center.
REGISTER
Apply for financial aid: August 18 at 10:00 am | General registration: August 25 at 10:00 am
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Financial aid:
Is cost a barrier to you taking a Poetry Class? Financial aid is available! Submit a short application online for a course of your choosing.
Applications close 5:00 pm on August 24.
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The Mask of the First Person: The Paradox of Veils & Revelation in Poetry with Bianca Stone
Wednesday, September 9, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Tuition: $100
Poetry is an ancient form of expression, a medium to speak the “unutterable.”
This class and generative workshop will enhance opportunities of writing outside of what we think we know, through embracing the fungibility of pronouns, I & Thou, addressee and addressed, veil and re-velation in poetry.
The (Re)Vision and (Re)Turning of the Poem with Layli Long Soldier
Wednesday, October 7, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Tuition: $100
How do poems evolve from early stages to their final forms? In this class, we'll learn to be open to “failure,” listen carefully to the piece, and work with constraints in the pursuit of liberation.
Laughing Matters: Comedy and Gravity in Poetry with July Westhale
Saturdays, November 7 & 14, 10:00am – 12:00pm
Tuition: $100
What happens when a poem makes you laugh and then immediately breaks your heart? This two-session workshop explores how poets use humor, wordplay, and levity to approach difficult subject matter—not as avoidance, but as craft. Come ready to laugh, write, and take risks.
Hope is a Thing with Wings: Bird Brain Poets with Pam Uschuk
Saturdays, November 7, 14, 21 & December 5, 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Tuition: $200
Poets in every culture have been obsessed with wings since time immemorial. This hands-on generative poetry writing intensive calls participants to learn from, listen to and observe our bird relatives in writing poems of all sorts! One class incorporates a bird walk near the Poetry Center and an opportunity to meet the instructor at Sweetwater Bird Refuge.
Never Finished, Only Abandoned: Ending Poems with Adrian Matejka
Wednesday, December 2, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Tuition: $100
Poems need some kind of resolution to reify the lines, stanzas, and trochees that precede the inevitable conclusion. In this session, we’re going to spend some time looking at the way writers shut things down in their work with an eye toward lifting their strategies for our own writing. Bring a poem-in-progress!
Unpacking the Prose Poem with Maya C. Popa
Saturday, December 5, 10:00am – 12:00pm | Tuition: $100
Kind-of-a-poem and kind-of-not, the prose poem is an enigmatic, hybrid creature. The poet James Tate went as far as to suggest that its paragraphs could trick the reader "into glimpsing a little sliver of eternity." In this class, we will closely inspect prose poems for such slivers before generating our own.