by Writing Workshops Staff
3 weeks ago
Brooklyn poet Vanessa Jimenez Gabb has spent fifteen years as a writing educator honing her craft toward what she calls "clean lines"—poetry that is direct and unadorned without sacrificing power and depth. Her forthcoming collection EASY (Nightboat Books, 2027) embodies this aesthetic, and now she's bringing this vital practice to students in her new six-week course, Clean Lines: Writing Toward Clarity, Precision and Elegance.
Drawing inspiration from poet Marie Howe's maxim "No metaphor," Vanessa guides writers through the challenging work of enduring "the thing itself" rather than seeking refuge in figurative language.
Through weekly writing exercises, close readings of poets from William Carlos Williams to Rio Cortez, and supportive workshop sessions, students will discover how dimension, nuance, and political consciousness can emerge through simplicity rather than ornament.
By the end of the course, participants will complete two new poems and develop revision skills to distill their work to its essential truth. For poets seeking presence and stillness in their practice, Vanessa offers what she describes with characteristic economy: a midwifery approach to bringing forth your most honest voice.
Writing Workshops: Hi, Vanessa. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: Hi everyone! I'm Vanessa Jimenez Gabb, a poet and writer from Brooklyn, NY. I've been a writing educator, coach and mentor for fifteen years and have written three full-length collections of poetry, including EASY, which is forthcoming in 2027 from Nightboat Books. I'm so excited to be joining the team at Writing Workshops and look forward to writing together!
Writing Workshops: What made you want to teach this specific class? Is it something you are focusing on in your own writing practice? Have you noticed a need to focus on this element of craft?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: I try to teach classes that I would want to take myself(!) and have always gravitated toward poetry that is direct and unadorned without sacrificing power and depth. We are surrounded by so much noise and simplicity is increasingly elusive, so this class feels like a much-needed practice in presence, distillation and stillness. For me, the need is always there.
Writing Workshops: Give us a breakdown of how the course is going to go. What can the students expect? What is your favorite part about this class you've dreamed up?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: This class is as much about structure and routine as it is about letting go and experimenting. We will begin each week with opening writing that is meant to get you thinking about your own poetry/life and its relationship to simplicity/complexity. We will then closely read model poems that are very different from one another but share "clean lines" or workshop our own poems for that week, based on topical prompts. Class will always close with an exercise informed by the session and with an eye toward the next one. We will be building and unpacking our own city, piece by piece. Fav part: the synergy that happens when all of these pieces coalesce; the depth > breadth.
Writing Workshops: Who was your first literary crush?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: The women characters, of course! -- Janie Starks (Their Eyes Were Watching God) & Jo March (Little Women), always & forever.
Writing Workshops: What are you currently reading?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: I'm loving non-fiction at the moment: The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara and Memorial Park: Revisiting Vietnam by Minh Nguyen, newly out from one of my favorite independent presses, Wendy's Subway.
Writing Workshops: How do you choose what you're working on? When do you know it is the next thing you want to write all the way to THE END?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: Oh, it chooses me, which doesn't always mean that I will finish it to the end. Often, there are many romances at once and romances that suspend indefinitely without end. But the knowledge of desire, of wanting it to go all the way to THE END even if it doesn't, is an organic, spontaneous process. It's when I'm closest to some sort of truth, as well as deep in the mystery of it all. I know when I know.
Writing Workshops: Where do you find inspiration?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: For me, inspiration always begins with my life and then deepens to consider the way social and political contradictions permeate it. The material world and its tensions, then, always becomes the true inspiration.
Writing Workshops: What is the best piece of writing wisdom you've received that you can pass along to our readers? How did it impact your work? Why has this advice stuck with you?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: I love what Marie Howe says, "No metaphor". It's apropos to this class I'm offering and to the way I live my writing life. "And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason."
Writing Workshops: What is your favorite book to recommend on the craft of writing? Why this book?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: Any book that affects you I think is a great insight into craft. More prescriptive favorites include, Rainer Marie Rilke's, Letters to a Young Poet and the more contemporary On Writing by Stephen King, as well as Amina Cain's, A Horse at Night: On Writing.
Writing Workshops: Bonus question: What's your teaching vibe?
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb: Midwifery<3
Whether you're just beginning your poetry practice or returning to it after time away, Vanessa's approach to clean lines offers a path toward the kind of presence we all crave in our writing and our lives. Through structured exercises and the supportive atmosphere of a small workshop community, you'll learn to trust what remains when excess falls away. Registration is open now for Clean Lines: Writing Toward Clarity, Precision and Elegance, beginning February 23, 2026. Join Vanessa and discover the power of describing things as they exist.
