Saúl Hernández is a queer writer who was raised by former undocumented parents. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. Saúl is a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. His debut poetry collection, How to Kill a Goat & Other Monsters, is a 2025 Lambda Literary Award Winner, a Writers’ League of Texas Discovery Award Winner, was longlisted for a PEN Open Book Award, and received the Institute of Letters’ honor-winner for First Book of Poetry. He's the winner of both the 2022 Pleiades Prufer Poetry Prize, judged by Joy Priest, & the 2021 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize, judged by Victoria Chang. His poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize & Best of The Net. Saúl’s work is featured in American Poetry Review, Poetry Daily, The Slowdown, Literary Hub, & elsewhere. 

Learn more about Saúl in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

Grief has the ability to lock our emotions, thoughts, and body in ways we may not have known could be possible. Yanyi said it best in their book, The Year of Blue Water, “There are places I can’t go, like outside my body.”

In this course, we will explore grief through poetry: What shapes do our bodies take, how do we process grief, what does grief look like for each of us, and how do we mend what we can’t see?

In our six weeks together, we will also explore what remains lingering before, during, and after death: How does society view death, how does a community grieve, and how do we, as a collective, approach such a vulnerable topic?

Throughout our time together, we will read poems from Victoria Chang, Eduardo C. Corral, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Ocean Vuong, Susan Nguyen, jj peña, and Yanyi, among others.

We will discuss form, white space, imagery, the speaker’s voice, and ultimately, what is at risk in each poem.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: What does grief look like?

Week 2: How do we process grief?

Week 3: How do we live & move with grief?

Week 4: Workshop

Week 5: Workshop

Week 6: Workshop

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• How grief is able to move us in the world.
• Creating beauty out of grief.
• Learn about other poets and what they have done with their grief.
  

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: