Led by Joan Kwon Glass, a diasporic Korean poet, winner of the 2024 Perugia Press Poetry Prize for her book DAUGHTER OF THREE GONE KINGDOMS, & NIGHT SWIM, winner of the Diode Book Prize. She is a 2025 Writer in Residence for SWWIM & has conducted writing workshops at undergraduate & MFA programs across the country, including The New School, Amherst College & Wesleyan University. Her work has been a finalist for the Tupelo Press Helena Whitehill Book Award, the Poetry Northwest Possession Sound Series, the University of Akron Poetry Prize & the Subnivean Award & her poems have been featured or are forthcoming in POETRY, The Slowdown, Passages North, Poetry Daily, Terrain, Rattle, AAWW (The Margins), Poetry Northwest, Tahoma Literary Review, Prairie Schooner & elsewhere. She teaches & lives near New Haven, CT.

In Mothers & Monsters, we will read & write poems that navigate difficult and/or complex family relationships.

Marguerite Duras once said, “Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met.”

In this multi-week, generative workshop, we will draw inspiration from the work of poets like Luna Rey Hall, Jamaica Baldwin, Sharon Olds, Natalie Diaz, Rachel McKibbens, Jessica Walsh, Jennifer Franklin, Eugenia Leigh & others.

We will read & write poems that align with the possibility that "two things can be true at once--" love & loathing, longing & retreat, grief & forgetting, reaching back & moving forward.

What monsters do we recognize in our family members & how do they reflect/differ from our own? How might we lean into these experiences in our writing & use this discomfort to fuel our creativity? How do we write about those we are bound to by blood and/or name, when they are the source of pain? How do we write distinctive and transformative poems that address complex and/or difficult family relationships that may be related to abuse, neglect, addiction, betrayal, abandonment, etc.?

This workshop will offer opportunities to consider what is means to embrace the complexity of memory, family & identity, to write fearlessly & radically and to revise our work with precision.

All materials will be provided by instructor via slideshow & pdf by the start of class.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week One: In our first session together, we will read extraordinary, foundational poems that explore & navigate difficult family relationships & identify their unique poetic elements & approaches (including poetic turns, use of word banks for unexpected metaphor, intentional avoidance of resolution, leaning into discomfort, mirroring, etc.) then generate new poems which incorporate some of these elements & approaches. We will also spend some time at the end of class sharing our work verbally.

Week Two: In our second session, we will read & write poems that specifically navigate difficult family of origin relationships. We will also spend some time at the end of class sharing our work verbally. 

Week Three: This week we will read & write poems that utilize experimental forms including burning haibun, Seussian sonnet, list poems & erasure. We read & write poems about other types of difficult family relationships & spend some time at the end of class sharing our work verbally. 

Week Four: This week we will have a visit from a poet who writes about difficult family of origin relationships, then we will continue generating new poems in this vein. We will also spend some time at the end of class sharing our work verbally. 

Week Five: In our final session together, we will consider outside-the-box strategies for revision as well as the power of precision and how to practice radical revision. We will attempt revision of one of our own poems as well as generate new poems & spend some time at the end of each class sharing our work verbally.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Students will read poems that lean into difficult family relationships, embrace complexity & identify patterns.
• Students will develop & strengthen their own voices & styles when it comes to writing about difficult family relationships.
• Students will practice using new and experimental poetry forms including the burning haibun, Seussian sonnet, pantoum, list poem, visual poem & erasure, as a way of conveying the complexities of difficult family relationships.

TESTIMONIALS:

“Joan’s 6 week class was great! She provided a wide variety of readings and unique writing prompts each class which made it easy to generate new writing. She also gave ample opportunity to share our work in a supportive environment. Her comments and reactions to our first drafts were always encouraging. Joan has a friendly competency about her that made the class relaxed and engaging. Look forward to future classes with her!“
Nancy Murphy

“I was so fortunate to be able to take a generative poetry writing course with Joan Kwon Glass. Joan led a wonderful, dynamic discussion each week, provided thoughtful, insightful feedback on poems drafted during the course, and created a syllabus full of inspiring prompts and poems to spark new work. I hope to take another class with her -soon!” -Marceline White

“I have had a broad range of experience with all kinds of classes, programs, and collaborations where everyone brings something personally important to the table to make progress on. You provided a space that opened up more and more every session, and I believe this is in part due to the universal respect you gave each and every one of our works. You smoothly identified what each poem was asking for and went beyond to foster new possibilities for us as poets. This lead each of us to grow not only as writers, but as gardeners of each other’s poetry as well. By encouraging us to look beyond what we want out of poems, and instead delve into what the poetry wants itself, your course became a yoga of honoring what’s said and unsaid. Thank you.“ -Sam Canney

“I had the pleasure of taking Joan Kwon Glass’s Poetic Magic class in the fall of 2022. To say the experience was one of growth would be a gross understatement. In this generative workshop, I found a whole new way to look at my work while being exposed to new and exciting poems I had not yet discovered. This launched me into a writing frenzy, producing several poems I hope to see published in my newest collection! Not only was there ample time for writing, exploring others work, and workshop feedback, but Joan’s guidance as a patient and wise instructor with a humble and encouraging demeanor helped to elicit the best from each poem and poet. Her support and insight have been instrumental in my growth in the craft of poetry, and I can’t recommend her highly enough.“ -R.B. Simon, Author of The Good Truth and Not Just the Fire

“Joan is an incredibly kind, welcoming, and supportive teacher. Her classes are deeply engaging and well researched, and she introduces her students to a wide variety of poets and new and important work. Her generative prompts are inspiring, and she offers thoughtful and brilliant insight into work created in class.” -Jill Kitchen

"Joan Kwon Glass’s three-hour “New Woman Warrior Poetry” workshop was a transformative experience. She’s a warm, welcoming teacher who dives into the heart of poems; and every student seemed to come alive in the discussions. Joan’s imaginative prompts were fantastic— I’m still using them. Plus, her individual feedback was smart, unusually detailed and insightful. I recommend Joan’s workshop to poets at any stage of their writing career." -Carla Sarrett

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: