Begins Monday, October 26, 2026.

This 3-week poetry workshop meets live via Zoom on Mondays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET (October 26, November 2, November 9).

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

Instructor Bio

Instructor Michael Klein is the author of five books of poetry, including The Early Minutes of Without: New & Selected Poems. His new book, Happiness Ruined Everything: Essays, has just been published by Galileo Press. He is a five-time finalist and two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award in poetry, for his first book, 1990, and for editing the seminal anthology Poets for Life: 76 Poets Respond to AIDS. He is also the author of two books of autobiography, Track Conditions, a memoir about his time on the racetrack, and The End of Being Known, essays on sex and friendship. His work has appeared in POETRY, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Tin House, Bennington Review, FENCE, LA Review of Books, Poets & Writers, and many other publications. He has taught writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Binghamton University, Hunter College, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Summer Program, and for more than 20 years as part of the MFA-in-Writing faculty at Goddard College. He is currently teaching remote classes for the Fine Arts Work Center, Poets House in NYC, and the Jamestown Arts Center in Rhode Island, where he lives and works as a consultant and editor for people working on memoirs and poetry manuscripts.

Who is this class for?

This online poetry workshop is for writers at all levels who have never approached the ecstatic poem as something they could write themselves. If you want to talk about the spiritual life with the ease of conversation — and sidestep the vague, new-agey register the subject usually attracts — this class is for you. Enrollment is limited to 10 writers for close attention and real conversation.

What to expect:

Days of Wonder is a reading-intensive, writing-focused poetry workshop that looks at matters of the spirit, soul, or inner life — however we may define the human (humane?) mechanism at work when facing huge joy or huge dread, in this world and in imagined worlds. How do we, as writers, face work that is at once essential and complex in an intimate, personal way? What does that work ask of its own length? Across three weeks, we'll read both long-ish poems and short ones to see how breadth or a compressed sensibility each demands a deliberate, measured way of taking in the world.

Rather than treat the ecstatic as something purely generative, this creative writing workshop uses the masters as a way to talk about the present moment — how those modes of thinking intersect with living in a world in chaos. Each session pairs close reading with new work: roughly the first hour in conversation about the assigned poems, the second hour with the poems you've written during the week. You'll also try a revision strategy where poems are read aloud — sometimes without the text in front of listeners — so the work can be heard as well as seen.

You'll receive instructor feedback during the workshop, in the live discussion of your drafts, alongside the responses of your peers. Expect a generous, craft-first room where the spiritual life is made unpredictable and as complex as the world itself.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will produce 5–10 new poems and drafts over three weeks, generated through weekly prompts and the reading. Students will receive verbal instructor feedback during each live session, with additional response from peers, and will leave with concrete strategies for revision and for reading their own work aloud.

Readings

Readings may include excerpts from "The Wild Iris" by Louise Glück; "The Singularity" by Marie Howe; "Things I Didn't Know I Loved" by Nazim Hikmet; "The Abduction" by Stanley Kunitz; "Six-Year-Old Boy" by Sharon Olds; "The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On" by Franny Choi; "Havana Birth" by Susan Mitchell; "Waving Goodbye" by Gerald Stern; "The Heart is the Capital of the Mind" by Emily Dickinson; "cutting greens" by Lucille Clifton; "A Blessing" by James Wright; and "Archaic Torso of Apollo" by Rainer Maria Rilke.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1 (October 26): What is the ecstatic — in life, in poetry — and its opposite, the ecstasy of the catastrophic and apocalyptic? We'll set how the class works (the first hour in discussion of poems from the handout, the second with poems written during the week) and consider subject matter that transcends the everyday: love, God, soul, mystery, the occult, sex. Reading focus: poems that feel channeled, including Louise Glück's "The Wild Iris," with the session closing on Marie Howe's "The Singularity," Nazim Hikmet's "Things I Didn't Know I Loved," and Stanley Kunitz's "The Abduction." Prompts: imitate a poem read in session; a love poem to an object; "things you didn't know you loved"; a poem in the voice of a dog who has just turned into a human being.

Week 2 (November 2): Discussion of poems written during the week, plus close reading aloud of Sharon Olds's "Six-Year-Old Boy," Franny Choi's "The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On," and Susan Mitchell's "Havana Birth." Prompts: a mysterious moment from your life that you can't explain; describe an everyday experience as something ecstatic; a list poem of things that bring you joy.

Week 3 (November 9): Discussion of poems written for homework, with reading and discussion of Gerald Stern's "Waving Goodbye," Emily Dickinson's "The Heart is the Capital of the Mind," Lucille Clifton's "cutting greens," James Wright's "A Blessing," and Rilke's "Archaic Torso of Apollo."

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• A portfolio of 5–10 new poems and drafts written across three weeks
• A working definition of the ecstatic poem — and a craft-first way to write the spiritual life without slipping into vague, new-agey language
• Practical revision strategies, including reading work aloud to hear what the poem is doing
• Close familiarity with a range of ecstatic poems by masters of the form, from Glück and Clifton to Stern, Hikmet, and Rilke
• Generative prompts you can return to long after the workshop ends

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $280 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Michael Klein
• Begins Monday, October 26, 2026
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Mondays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET (October 26, November 2, November 9)
• Tuition is $280 USD.