The Writers Studio

Students at this level are writing poetry with an increased focus on creating an individual voice and an emotional atmosphere. Exercises using free verse and traditional, received forms (i.e. sonnet, villanelle, sestina, and pantoum) as well as meter and syllabics are suggested in order to strengthen a student’s technical skills.

Students attend class via Google Meet (with or without cameras enabled). The entire class takes place during this class meeting: students share work, which is read aloud; students offer their classmates feedback; the teacher responds to each student's work; and the teacher discusses the next week’s exercise.

This class asks students to recognize what makes a poem engaging and entertaining to the reader. Students follow the Craft Class syllabus (along with readings distributed by the teacher) from which exercises are taken. Students begin taking Craft Class in their fourth term of Online Advanced Poetry. Many students are finishing exercises and publishing poetry in literary journals and anthologies.

Open to poets who have poetry publications, an MFA, or four post-graduate writing courses and students who have completed Level 2 at The Writers Studio. After completing a number of sessions in Advanced Poetry, students may go on to study with Philip Schultz in the Master Class, with permission of the teacher. Please contact Lisa Bellamy at [email protected] to apply for this class. Places in the class are awarded by the instructor on a case-by-case basis.