This 4-month poetry workshop will focus on a particular poetry project and manuscript that you are working on, to push it to a poetry draft that you feel good about. This is similar to a thesis-level class at a MFA workshop.
The class starts on August 27, 2026, Thursday, and will meet every other week until December 17, 2026, Thursday from 4-6:30pm PT / 7-9:30pm ET.
Please note: This class is application-based on a rolling basis. Before signing up for the fall term, please send a 10-page writing sample and a paragraph describing what you hope to get out of the workshop to Trip Whitfield, trip dot whitfield at gmail dot com. We’ll get back to you soon with next steps.
In the fall workshop, we will focus on a careful analysis and discussion of manuscripts that each participant is working on. We will get to know each other’s projects, each other’s goals, and dive deep in each manuscript to really bring out the unique voice and truths that each project holds. We also will be reading and looking at poetry books, films and solo-shows in the world, in order to help us expand and examine ideas of craft, structure, form, and play. Using both participants' manuscripts and existing work in the world, this class will push each participant towards getting closer to their unique voices, developing a manuscript that each participant can be proud of, pushing it to the next step.
Our feedback sessions will be focused on discussing the truth that we see in the manuscript, the voice that’s coming through in the manuscript, and the idea of what this manuscript is specifically offering that is unique. From there, our feedback will be based on how to get this manuscript closer to the vision of itself that it is articulating and centering the writer—moving beyond ideas of what one ‘should’ do, or our reactions or individual taste. I view workshop and feedback as a sacred container, a gift we bring to each other by engaging thoroughly in each other's work, and that will be upheld throughout the semester.
Throughout the class, we also will discuss the industry of publication, what it means to be a working writer, and pathways that are both traditional and non-traditional in a career as a poet.
You can read testimonials from previous students here. If you’re interested in a generative class, there’s more about the spring term here; if you’re interested in both, you can learn more here.
This 4-month poetry workshop will focus on a particular poetry project and manuscript that you are working on, to push it to a poetry draft that you feel good about. This is similar to a thesis-level class at a MFA workshop.
The class starts on August 27, 2026, Thursday, and will meet every other week until December 17, 2026, Thursday from 4-6:30pm PT / 7-9:30pm ET.
Please note: This class is application-based on a rolling basis. Before signing up for the fall term, please send a 10-page writing sample and a paragraph describing what you hope to get out of the workshop to Trip Whitfield, trip dot whitfield at gmail dot com. We’ll get back to you soon with next steps.
In the fall workshop, we will focus on a careful analysis and discussion of manuscripts that each participant is working on. We will get to know each other’s projects, each other’s goals, and dive deep in each manuscript to really bring out the unique voice and truths that each project holds. We also will be reading and looking at poetry books, films and solo-shows in the world, in order to help us expand and examine ideas of craft, structure, form, and play. Using both participants' manuscripts and existing work in the world, this class will push each participant towards getting closer to their unique voices, developing a manuscript that each participant can be proud of, pushing it to the next step.
Our feedback sessions will be focused on discussing the truth that we see in the manuscript, the voice that’s coming through in the manuscript, and the idea of what this manuscript is specifically offering that is unique. From there, our feedback will be based on how to get this manuscript closer to the vision of itself that it is articulating and centering the writer—moving beyond ideas of what one ‘should’ do, or our reactions or individual taste. I view workshop and feedback as a sacred container, a gift we bring to each other by engaging thoroughly in each other's work, and that will be upheld throughout the semester.
Throughout the class, we also will discuss the industry of publication, what it means to be a working writer, and pathways that are both traditional and non-traditional in a career as a poet.
You can read testimonials from previous students here. If you’re interested in a generative class, there’s more about the spring term here; if you’re interested in both, you can learn more here.
