This six-month poetry cohort is designed for writers seeking a flexible yet focused environment to establish or deepen their poetry writing practice. Our focus will be on accountability, encouragement, and community.
With a maximum of 10 participants, this cohort offers personalized feedback, goal-setting, and accountability, all from the convenience of an online setting. It’s an ideal option for both local and remote writers looking to work closely with peers and an experienced instructor.
Monthly Meetings (Online via Zoom):
Once a month, we’ll gather over Zoom for a two-hour session, where you’ll have dedicated time to workshop poems and discuss your writing goals, challenges, successes, and general questions. In these meetings, we’ll dive deep into key craft elements and some generative exercises. Not every meeting will focus on line-by-line feedback—sometimes we’ll zero in on specific elements (for instance, focus on everyone’s use of line breaks or metaphors) and see how isolating a particular craft element can help us grow as poets.
Between Meetings (Asynchronous):
In between sessions, you’ll stay connected through a shared Google Drive, where you can submit drafts and offer feedback. You’ll also have the option to engage in additional check-ins or discussions, whether through written feedback or brief one-on-one meetings. This flexible structure ensures continuous progress on your poetry, while still providing opportunities for personalized guidance and accountability.
Expectations:
What you can expect from the instructor:
What you can expect from yourself:
What you can expect from your peers:
NOTE: Registration requires a $60 deposit, which can be waived by Porch members using the member discount code. You will receive a payment link in your registration receipt, and the remaining $1200 payment can be paid in full immediately or in monthly installments.
Amie Whittemore (she/her) is the author of four poetry collections, most recently the chapbook Hesitation Waltz (Midwest Writing Center). She was the 2020-2021 Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her poems have won multiple awards, including a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and her writing has appeared in Blackbird, Colorado Review, Terrain.org, Pleiades, and elsewhere.
"Amie sent materials enough ahead for us to be familiar with concepts and example poems before we discussed them. In the three hour workshop, we looked at six approaches to personal and persona poems and how these approaches might be used in our own work. Time for discussion, for personal drafts, for breakout sharing with one other class member, and then a return for group summation was applied as much as possible for each of the six approaches. When a class member wanted longer discussion, Amie adjusted the remaining time appropriately so that we left knowing how to approach all six techniques. She's a masterful teacher as well as a fine poet!"
"Amie is a fantastic teacher; she was warm and encouraging and provided excellent examples of poems that we talked through as a class before attempting writing prompts. I would definitely take a class from her again in the future!"
"Amie is an engaging and lively presence on screen. A natural teacher."
