Sometimes the “love poem” we find easiest to write begins with an adjacent subject. Consider how Mary Oliver’s famous line, “He is exactly the poem I wanted to write,” is about a heron. This class is for writers of all experience levels. Through step-by-step generative exercises will explore forms like the cento and poetic devices like point of view, repetition, and the line break. Together we’ll consider how we might broaden the scope of the love poem to become a record, an ode, and a form of care.

We’ll borrow inspiration from Eduardo C. Corral, Aracelis Girmay, and Sam Herschel Wein to examine the speech acts we associate with love and how they might manifest for (and from) different sources. We’ll write with intention to consider the people, creatures and places we want to house in our poems. After all, the word “stanza” comes from the Italian word for “room.” If a stanza is a room, we can choose who enters.

Bring your phone in order to access your “digital archive” of texts, messages and emails for one of our generative exercises.