Saturdays, January 10, 24, 31 & February 7, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM   
I Did Not Stop for Death: The Poetry of Resilience 

with Pamela Uschuk

This four-week generative poetry workshop is for people who have dealt in any way with a left-threatening disease—whether it be as a patient, as a family member or as a friend.

Note: This is not the same class that she taught at the Poetry Center in 2024. Both materials and prompts are new.

Saturday, January 10, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM  
Catching Up With Yourself  

with Cameron Awkward-Rich 

This generative workshop will ask participants to experiment with techniques for talking to what is hidden in us, somehow ahead of us. Please arrive with something (a diary entry, an old poem of yours, a photograph…) that represents, to you, a younger version of yourself.

Wednesday, January 14, 5:00 PM – 7:00PM  
Audacity, Extravagance, and Excess   

with Franny Choi  

This is a poetry workshop about subverting expectations, breaking patterns, and doing too much. How do we write poems that crack through the haze of decorum? How do we say it like it is, but without reproducing cliches? How do we render emotional intensity in our craft, not just our content? That is: how do poets break rules in a way that works?

Wednesday, January 28, 5:00 PM – 7:00PM  
Old Stories in New Language: Writing Contemporary Midrash  

with Alicia Ostriker 

Midrash is a Hebrew word meaning "seek" or "investigate," originally referring to how ancient rabbis re-told biblical stories, spinning them so they would be meaningful to their own time and place. In this workshop, writers have the opportunity to find new meanings in old stories.  We laugh a lot doing this exercise, and sometimes we cry.  We always make unpredictable discoveries.

Saturday, January 31, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM 
Getting Out of the Way and Letting in the Light  

with Eleanor Wilner 

This class will be a conversation about ways to escape the tiresome ego and outwit its censorship in order to write the poems we need to read, and to call in “the muse” and open the way to connection and discovery.

Saturdays, Feb 7, 14, 21, 28 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM 
Memory and Image: Crafting Micro Memoir  

with Joni Wallace 

Expect to write from and out of the shimmering objects of childhood (these, as poet Derek Mahon describes, "hold entire worlds") and the indelible moments of personal story, which we’ll render and tiny and jewel-like on a revolving stage of compression and elision.  Come ready to experiment and imagine.

Wednesday, March 25, 5:00 PM – 7:00PM  
Migrating Forms: On the Ghazal & the Sonnet   

with Zeina Hashem Beck 

In this class, we will explore the history of two literary forms, emanating from different parts of the world: the sonnet and the ghazal. We will ask: How can the constraint of form liberate us, allowing for creative poetic leaps?

Saturdays, April 4, 11, 18, 25, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM   
Beat… Zen… Write   

with Charles Alexander

This class is a generative writing workshop that will proceed from readings of several of the prominent Beat Poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Phillip Whalen, Joanne Kyger, Bob Kaufman, and Diane DiPrima. We read to understand how they conceived poetry, we include meditation periods because the poets were deeply involved with Zen Buddhism, and through mindful contemplation we will come to write.