The Advanced Poetry Workshop is open to students who have completed previous workshop-level classes at The Muse or those who have extensive workshop or graduate-level experience. This class focuses on writing, criticism, and the exploration of contemporary poetic discourse. Students at this level are writing poetry with an increased focus on creating an individual voice and emotional richness. Students will be expected to submit regularly and provide thoughtful feedback to classmates. 

Returning students and new members with poetry writing experience will actively write and revise original poems, focusing on elements of craft and analyzing select poems by our best poets that effectively model those elements. All group members will have the opportunity to submit material for the workshop. Your instructor will make every effort to tailor the submission schedule to your individual goals.

The Poetry Workshop continues with returning members and new members with poetry writing experience. Members of the group will actively write and revise original poems, focusing on elements of craft and analyzing select poems by our best poets that effectively model those elements. All group members will have the opportunity to submit material for the workshop. Your instructor will make every effort to tailor the submission schedule to your individual goals.

Whether you’re brand new to poetry or just need a refresher on the craft of writing poems, this class will focus on the fundamentals of what makes a great poem. With a strong emphasis on how to read a poem as a writer, this class mixes both traditional and formal poetry with modern contemporary examples and covers the basics of form and language. This class will help you build your toolbox of literary devices to begin crafting poems on your…

Mardi Gras, Carnival and other fiestas and bacchanal sessions have been, for centuries, the promise implicit in any lousy period: get through it, and there will be a great party waiting on the other side. They developed as loosenings up after the clamp downs societies endured to survive a plague, a Depression, a devastating period of war. And sometimes it works: the plague demands, among other things, that everyone endure the psychological burden of designation, everyone gets branded: sick or well. To…

An important part of growing up was learning to “behave yourself,” which often meant speaking softly or listening rather than speaking. I imagine, like me, many of you had a parent who said watch your tone when you speak to me or watch how you talk to your teacher. To stay out of trouble, we learned to speak one way to our friends, another way to our elders, another way to religious leaders, and yet another way to those we…