Starts on Saturday, August 1st, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Wet Ink (asynchronous) for 6 weeks

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us. 

Instructor Renee Emerson is the author of the poetry collections Keeping Me Still, Threshing Floor, and Church Ladies. She is also the author of the chapbook The Commonplace Misfortunes of Everyday Plants and the middle-grade novel Why Silas Miller Must Learn to Ride a Bike. She holds an MFA in poetry from Boston University, where she was also awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and children.

Who is this class for?

This course is for poetry writers of all levels who are interested in learning craft from the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Whether you are discovering Plath for the first time or returning to her work with fresh eyes, this online poetry workshop will help you transform what you find in her pages into fuel for your own writing.

What to expect:

Each week in this online poetry workshop, you will study the work of Sylvia Plath—from her early juvenilia to the explosive final poems of Ariel—learning the techniques she employs and incorporating them into your own writing through generative prompts. Alongside Plath's poetry, you will read selections from her journals, letters, interviews, and critical essays, tracing the evolution of her voice from careful formal control to fierce, transformative revelation. Together, the group will explore how Plath drew on myth, sound, symbol, and a precise attention to language to create poems of startling imagery and emotional intensity.

This creative writing workshop is built around both community and craft. Participants will offer respectful and generous critique of one another's poems, with the goal of supporting and strengthening each other as writers. Instructor Renee Emerson will provide a detailed, line-by-line critique of every poem you submit, along with a full page of cumulative thoughts, revision advice, and suggested magazines that may be interested in publishing your work.

This class is asynchronous, meaning you complete weekly assignments on your own schedule. There are no set meeting times, allowing for participation from writers across different time zones. All course materials—craft lectures, reading assignments, writing prompts, and peer feedback—are delivered through Wet Ink, our dedicated online classroom. Discussion questions each week invite further exploration of the readings, and Renee engages actively with students throughout the week.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will generate six complete poems, each of which will receive a full critique from Renee Emerson. Renee critiques line-by-line and includes a page of cumulative thoughts on each poem, advice on revision, and suggested magazines that may be interested in the work. Students will also participate in peer critique, offering and receiving written feedback from their fellow poets.

Readings

Readings may include poems from Plath's juvenilia and from her collections The Colossus, Crossing the Water, and Ariel, as well as selections from her journals, letters, interviews, and critical essays on her work. All readings are available online and will be linked within the Wet Ink classroom.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Ambition — Biography & Craft

Week 2: Apprenticeship — Juvenilia

Week 3: Control — The Colossus

Week 4: Breakthrough — Persona & Confessional Poems

Week 5: Dream / Symbol — Crossing the Water

Week 6: Explosion — Ariel

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Six new, fully workshopped poems
• Line-by-line critique with revision advice and publication suggestions for every poem submitted
• A deeper understanding of Sylvia Plath's life, voice, and poetic development
• Familiarity with key collections including The Colossus, Crossing the Water, and Ariel
• Skills in applying Plath's techniques—imagery, myth, sound, and symbol—to your own work
• Meaningful discussion and community with fellow poets

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class is asynchronous, meaning 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 Renee 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. There are discussion questions each week 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. Renee 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.

• Instructor: Renee Emerson
• Starts Saturday, August 1st, 2026
  
• The course is fully online, allowing students to work according to their own schedule within weekly deadlines. Ahead of the class start date, the instructor will send you a link to our online classroom, provided via Wet Ink.