Begins Sunday, November 8, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Sundays, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM ET

(Five sessions: Nov 8, 15, 22, Dec 6, and 13. No class Sunday, Nov 29.)

🌍 Class Times by Time Zone: Los Angeles (PST): 7:30 AM – 9:30 AM / Chicago (CST): 9:30 AM – 11:30 AM / New York (EST): 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM / London (GMT): 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM / Berlin (CET): 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM

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

Instructor Nadia Bongo is a teaching artist and translator. She holds a PhD in French Language and Literature from Aix-Marseille Université. She has earned a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship. Her writing and/or photographs have appeared in Apex, African Voices, Litro online, Solstice, The Citron Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, Blue Mesa Review, and elsewhere. Nadia's first co-directed short poetry film, Wandering In Beauty, has been selected by festivals such as Fotogenia Film Festival (Mexico) and West Sound Film Festival (US). Her second co-created short was on view at a gallery in Philadelphia in the Fall of 2025. She has received grants from University Open Air (Brooklyn Public Library) and Boston Writers of Color. In September 2025, she was a Teaching Artist in Residence for Washington Square Park Conservancy.

Who is this class for?

This online poetry workshop is for poets of all levels who are looking for fresh inspiration to write. While it is designed primarily for poets, any writer can benefit — the visual, image-driven prompts add new imagery and emotional motifs to work in any genre.

What to expect:

Collage and poetry are far more closely related than they first appear — critics have called the work of artists like Joseph Cornell and Betye Saar "visual poems." In this generative poetry workshop, the conjunction of images in collage becomes a springboard for writing more freely and more surprisingly, helping you move past self-censorship and tap into emotions you may not have known you were carrying.

Each week begins with a guided look at collages from artists such as Lorna Simpson, David Hockney, Hannah Höch, Joseph Cornell, and Jacob Lawrence. After discussing the work, we'll read short poems from writers including Lucille Clifton, Pierre Reverdy, Robin Coste Lewis, and John Ashbery, noting the interesting moves each poem makes. You'll then respond to prompts in a focused writing session and share your work for feedback — both during class and afterward. Writers who already make collages are welcome to use their own pieces as a starting point.

This is a hands-on creative writing workshop built around drafting, experimentation, and revision. Over five weeks you'll generate a body of new poems, develop a repeatable method for finding inspiration in visual art, and bring one poem to a polished, performance-ready draft for the final class.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will produce at least four poem drafts — one per generative session — and revise at least one into a polished, finished poem to read aloud during the final class. Students receive feedback on each draft from both the instructor and their peers during class, with additional instructor feedback afterward. Writers who submit revised drafts after receiving notes can leave the workshop with several polished poems.

Readings may include excerpts from John Ashbery, They Knew What They Wanted: Collages and Poems (Rizzoli Electa, 2019); Robin Coste Lewis, To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness (Knopf, 2022); Lucille Clifton, The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, 1965–2010 (BOA, 2012); Pierre Reverdy, edited by Mary Ann Caws (NYRB, 2013); and Lorna Simpson, Collages (Chronicle Books, 2018). Individual poems studied in class include work by John Ashbery, Tracy K. Smith, Federico García Lorca, Charles Baudelaire ("Correspondences"), Lucille Clifton, Pierre Reverdy, René Magritte, Natasha Trethewey, Victoria Chang, Ilya Kaminsky, and 2Pac.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Collage & Poetry — An introduction to collage, then work that openly blurs the line between poetry and assemblage, including Joseph Cornell's "visual poems" and John Ashbery's collage poems. Readings include Ashbery, Tracy K. Smith, and García Lorca. (Students read Baudelaire's "Correspondences" before the first class.)

Week 2: Collage & Dreams — Dreamlike, surrealist, and mystical collages by Dora Maar and Betye Saar, paired with Lucille Clifton's dream poems, leading to prompts on dream logic and uncensored, surrealist-style writing.

Week 3: Collage & Realism / Surrealism — David Hockney and Hannah Höch alongside poems by Pierre Reverdy, René Magritte, and Natasha Trethewey, with prompts on simile, metaphor, and image.

Week 4: Collage & Society — Lorna Simpson and Romare Bearden paired with poems by Victoria Chang, Ilya Kaminsky, and 2Pac, exploring how image and language speak to the wider world.

Week 5: Final Revision & Reading — A dedicated writing and revision session followed by a class reading, where each poet shares a revised poem and receives feedback.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• At least four new poem drafts and one polished, finished poem
• A repeatable, generative method for sparking poems from visual art and collage
• Experience giving and receiving feedback in a supportive workshop setting
• New strategies for moving past self-censorship to write more freely and surprisingly
• A richer toolkit of imagery and emotional motifs to carry into future work across genres

TESTIMONIALS:

"I loved my classes with Nadia. Nadia is an incredibly kind and interested professor, and her care for her subject and students is evident in all she does. Her interdisciplinary approach to teaching provides a rich foundation for conversation and a range of access points for a variety of learners. Not only did I leave Nadia's classes with a deeper understanding of the subjects at hand, but I also left them with a greater understanding of the subjects contextualised. Nadia's classes make learning accessible, engaging, and fun!" — Sophie Boka, Writer and Master's student at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

"Nadia is a generous reader and is someone whose feedback I've been very grateful for. As a mindful enjoyer but also critic of poetry, she further explores the images, music, and language of any poem — much to the benefit of any poet. She engages with a poem from multiple angles to greater highlight the work that the writer is doing. She develops rapport and connection very quickly, and easily identifies the strengths a writer may have, but also knows how to encourage them to tap into something less familiar. Having been both a fellow student with her in a workshop and also being part of a writing group that she helped facilitate, I think she would be an excellent instructor for any craft aspect of poetry." — J.C. Rodriguez, Writer, Educator, and MFA student at Syracuse University

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $395 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: Nadia Bongo
• Begins Sunday, November 8, 2026
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Sundays, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM ET (no class Nov 29; concludes Dec 13)
• Tuition is $395 USD.