Exploring Poetic Forms: a 6-Week Generative Class, Starts Monday, May 6th, 2024
Starts, Monday, May 6th, 2024
This is an asynchronous class that will have an online classroom in Wet Ink.
Open to All writers!
Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.
Taught by Meg Eden, the author of five poetry chapbooks, the novel Post-High School Reality Quest (2017), the poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World (2020), and the forthcoming novel-in-verse Good Different, a JLG Gold Standard Selection (Scholastic, 2023). She is also a participating author with the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program.
Level up your poetry by gaining form tools for your toolbox!
In this 6-week workshop, we’ll explore why form is relevant for contemporary poets, and how we can take advantage of form to strengthen both traditional and free-verse poems.
Poetic form isn’t just meter and rhyme--it encompasses a diverse range of vessels that poems can inhabit. Form can help focus our poems, and reinforce a tone beyond our written words. When we have writer’s block, form can give us direction on how to keep writing.
Over the six weeks of this workshop, we’ll write in several forms (including the haiku, sestina, pantoum, and sonnet), and explore what content works well with different types of forms.
Readings of specific poems will be provided within the course itself.
COURSE OUTLINE:
Week 1: We’ll discuss form in poetry (traditional forms as well as the principles of form). Why is form important? What does it accomplish?
Week 2: We’ll explore the haiku, which teaches us about poetic structure
Week 3: We’ll explore the pantoum, which teaches us about effective repetition
Week 4: We’ll explore the sestina, which teaches us how to play with words
Week 5: We’ll explore the sonnet, which teaches us to play with sound through meter and rhyme.
Week 6: You will select a form to study and present to the class (via a written reflection) and write a poem in this form. We’ll reflect on what we learned about form and how we can apply these skills to free-verse poems.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- Learn how to use 4 traditional poetic forms.
- Learn how to utilize poetic tools like repetition, sound, aha moments, and line breaks.
- Discover a new form of research of your choosing.
- Get feedback on your individual poems.
ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:
This class is entirely asynchronous, which means you complete the weekly assignments on your own schedule. There are no set meeting times in order to allow for greater participation; your cohort will consist of writers from across different time zones, which allows for a wonderful diversity of voices.
Along with your weekly deadlines, there is plenty of interaction with Meg and your peers within Wet Ink, our dedicated online classroom. Craft materials, lectures, reading assignments, and writing prompts are all available through the online classroom. Students also post work and provide and receive feedback within the online classroom environment.
You can finish the work as you see fit week-to-week, which is perfect for any schedule. Each week, discussion questions are inspired by the assigned readings and topics in the lecture notes. Students are encouraged to take these wherever is most compelling and/or useful for them. Meg engages with these discussions throughout the week and you will receive feedback from all assigned writing activities.
HOW DOES WET INK WORK?
Wet Ink was built and designed specifically for online writing classes. Wet Ink is private, easy to use, and very interactive. You can learn more about the Wet Ink platform by Watching a Class Demo.
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Class starts on Monday, May 6th, 2024
- This is an asynchronous class that will have an online classroom in Wet Ink.
If you have questions, please use the Chat Button or contact us via email HERE.
Instructor Meg Eden is a 2020 Pitch Wars mentee. She is the author of five poetry chapbooks, the novel Post-High School Reality Quest (2017), the poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World (2020), and the forthcoming novel-in-verse Good Different, a JLG Gold Standard Selection (Scholastic, 2023). She is also a participating author with the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program. Her work is published or forthcoming in magazines, including Writer’s Digest, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Poetry Northwest, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO, and CV2. Meg received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland College Park.