We’ve heard it said that writing must engage from the outset, and must keep us interested until the very end. How can we leverage the grammar and syntax of the poem alongside its other elements, to lead us (and our readers) to moments of greater pleasure, insight, and surprise; as well as toward more effective ways of concluding? We’ll read and study a curated selection of poems that provide brilliant examples of these kinds of maneuvers, and either work on generating new work, or tinkering with poems we may have previously written but whose effects we’d like to deepen.