English poet, David Whyte, describes self-compassion as a form of faith, a way in which to converse with the world, and as poets, we can only best perform this act with innocent eyes. In this class, we will attempt to do just that. We will grant ourselves permission to wonder again, to gaze at the world freshly, to recognize our innate curiosities as our own spiritual journeys and to return to those curiosities with sacred ferocity. And in turn, hopefully, we will discover that it is not our fears which have prevented us from writing well. It is not that we were afraid of what we would discover, uncover, or recover, but we were afraid of the aftermath; we were afraid of what we would do with these revelations. We were afraid of ourselves. The highest aim of this class, then, is to increase our compassion toward ourselves, so that we may protect our inner poets, remembering as Mary Oliver says, “you do not have to be good… you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Not only can you expect to create new poems and writings in this class, you will find permission to be your own compassionate safekeeper.

Please note: This class is an online class. To participate, students must have a stable internet connection with a computer or device with a webcam and microphone.