Online Poetry for Everyone

This online class features a weekly discussion via Google Meet and written critiques.

Are you a dedicated prose writer, but sometimes just want to write a poem? (As Vladimir Nabokov wrote, “You have to saturate yourself with English poetry in order to compose English prose.”) Have you written poetry on your own, maybe secretly, and want to learn more?  Do you take writing classes and, increasingly, ask yourself whether you could try your hand at writing a poem?

In this six-week class, we will try poetry-writing exercises based on accessible, yet artistically challenging and satisfying, models from poets such as Danez Smith, Denise Duhamel, Garrett Hongo. Ada Limon, and Philip Larkin, for example.  The last week will feature a choice of either technical / form exercise or a revision.  In the optional weekly, unrecorded live discussions, we will discuss the week’s exercise and explore the model’s basic technical issues.  All welcome.  For six weeks, be a poet!

This class is open to new, current, and returning Writers Studio students.

Instructor(s)

Writers Studio Teacher

Lisa Bellamy

Lisa Bellamy is the author of Wonder Body (Fernwood Press imprint / Barclay Press, forthcoming 2027) and The Northway, full-length poetry collections (Terrapin Books). Her chapbook Nectar won The Aurorean’s poetry chapbook contest. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Sun, Massachusetts Review, New Ohio Review, The Southern Review, Sho, Allium, Verse Daily, Hotel Amerika, Salamander, Asimov’s Science Fiction,Chautauqua, Kestrel, Gyroscope Review, The Southampton Review, Calyx, Cimarron Review, Tiferet, Anglican Theological Review, PANK, Christian Century, Unbroken, The Branches Journal, Thimble, Jackdaw Review, and Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia, among other publications. She has received two Pushcart Prizes, a Fugue Poetry Prize, honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and has been featured in podcasts, including The Writer’s Almanac. The U.N. Network on Migration featured her poem “Yoho” in its 2022 exhibition. She is a graduate of Princeton University.