Workshops
The Language of Loss: Poetry Writing Through Grief (Begins February 1, 2026)
Grief resists language, but poetry can enter silence. In this six-week online workshop, we’ll study how poets have written out of grief and what craft choices make their work so resonant.
Each week, Renee will share poems, readings, and writing prompts designed to spark new drafts. We’ll talk about image, voice, and structure—and how these elements can shape experiences of loss into art.
You’ll be encouraged to share your work in a supportive space. By the end of the class, you’ll leave with six workshopped poems, a deeper understanding of how craft can carry grief, and fresh ways of approaching your own writing.
Writing Sharon Olds: Master Fearless Craft 6-Week Online Poetry Class (Begins April 1st, 2026)
Each week in this online writing class, you will study the poetry of Sharon Olds, learning from the writing techniques she employs and incorporating them into your own poems through weekly prompts. You will read Olds’s poetry alongside interviews, craft essays, and critical writing on her work. The workshop offers respectful and generous critique of one another’s poems, with the goal of supporting and strengthening each other as writers.
Sharon Olds is known for her fearless attention to the body, family, power, and intimacy, and for a voice that is direct, unsentimental, and exacting. While her poems are often described as confessional, they are also carefully shaped, ethically alert, and deeply controlled. Over the course of six weeks, you will study how Olds transforms difficult and intimate material into precise, lasting poems—and how her lifelong practice offers permission, discipline, and craft lessons you can carry into your own work.
[Closed] Writing Louise Gluck: A Generative Poetry Workshop (November 1, 2025)
This generative workshop will examine the work of Louise Glück, incorporating writing prompts based on her poetry and advice from her essays on craft. Open to all levels, and students will generate eight new poems in this class.
Each week, we will study one of Louise Glück’s books, learning from the writing techniques she employs and incorporating them into our own poems in a weekly prompt.
In the workshop, we will read Glück’s poetry and craft essays as well as essays written on Glück’s work. We will offer respectful and kind critique of each others work, with goal of uplifting and supporting each other as writers.
Louise Glück was Poet Laureate, with an unmistakable dry, ironic voice that will not soon be forgotten, but she was also, for many years, a poetry teacher. Even after she has passed on, we can learn from the valuable advice and well-crafted poetry she has left behind.