2025 Workshops & Faculty

BASIC CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE: TUE-FRI
Cost $675

Includes panels & evening readings, lunch (Wed/Thur) & dinner (Tue/Wed/Thur), banquet & receptions only.

BASIC CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE + workshop package registration: TUE-FRI
COST $975

Includes panels & evening readings, lunch (Wed/Thur) & dinner (Tue/Wed/Thur), banquet & receptions, PLUS any 3 workshop sessions (1 x three-day workshop, 1 x two-day + 1 x one-day workshop, or 3 x one-day workshop bundle).

CONFERENCE DAY FEES ALONE (NO WORKSHOP)
TUE, $225; WED, $275; THUR, $265; FRI, $195

Includes panels & evening readings, lunch (Wed/Thur), dinner/banquet (Tue/Wed/Thur), reception, lunch on Wed/Thur ON SELECTED DAYS ONLY.

Three-Day Workshops/Seminars: Wed, Thur, and Fri pm. 

DAVID M. KATZ, Joshua Mehigan

TWO-DAY WORKSHOPS/SEMINARS: WED/THUR AND THUR/FRI
PACKAGE WITH A ONE-DAY WORKSHOP 
OR Cost $250 per workshop PLUS CONFERENCE DAY FEES 

Chad Abushanab, MELISSA BALMAIN, David Groff, Allison Joseph

One-Day Workshops: TUE , WED, THUR, AND FRI
PACKAGE WITH A TWO-DAY WORKSHOP OR BUNDLE OF THREE
OR Cost $150 per workshop PLUS CONFERENCE DAY FEES

Austin Allen, NICOLE CARUSO GARCIA, MIDGE GOLDBERG, Clare Rossini

PERSONAL POETRY CONSULTATION
COST $50 FOR 30 MINUTES

ANNA M. EVANS

 

Three-Day Workshops/Seminars

Master Poets Critical Seminar: The FORMs of AUDEN
with David M. Katz

The Master Poets Critical Seminar offers the exciting opportunity to study a master poet, boost your poetic practice, and engage in meaningful conversation with other poets about the poetry of a master. Led by David M. Katz, this year’s seminar will focus on close readings of the poetry of W.H. Auden, with a close look at how one of the greatest poets of the 20th century used a dazzling array of poetic forms, meter, and rhyme. The results were some of the most moving villanelles, elegies, and lyrics in the language. Early on, the poet found that Thomas Hardy’s metrical and stanzaic variety provided him with “invaluable training in the craft of making.” Perhaps a look at Auden’s forms can stimulate us in a similar way. 

In preparation for the seminar, participants will independently study Auden’s poetry with some emphasis on the forms he used. At the Conference, they will each be asked to make a brief presentation to other seminar participants on an Auden poem of their choice. If there’s time, participants may present poems of their own inspired by Auden or Auden-adjacent element. They can opt for the seminar when registering for the 2025 Conference. For more information or to contact the seminar leader, email poetryby_thesea@yahoo.com with the subject line “Seminar.”

David M. Katz is the author of five books of poetry—The Biographer, In Praise of Manhattan, Stanzas on Oz, and Claims of Home, all published by Dos Madres Press, and The Warrior in the Forest (House of Keys). About The Biographer, his most recent book, reviewer Dennis Daly wrote: “From beginning to end this superb book of poems illuminates the magical sum and substance of human nature, as well as the importance of soulful imagination at the heart of even the most objective life histories, or their fictional and spectral counterparts.” Poems of his have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, The Hudson Review, The New Criterion, PN Review (UK), The New Republic, The Hopkins Review, Shenandoah, Alabama Literary Review, The Cortland Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. He is a co-host of the Morningside Poetry Series in Manhattan and posts frequently on his website, The David M. Katz Poetry Blog. In 2024, he starred in Gully’s Paradise, a film by Shalom Gorewitz.

UNDERSTANDING & USING END RHYME
with Joshua Mehigan

Why bother with end rhyme nowadays? It was just great for Dickinson and Pope and Skelton, but so were privies and bloodletting for melancholia. For much of the past century, if you dare use it at all you will be immediately written off by many mainstream poets as a weirdo. Graduate students are taught to think of it as they might think of quill pens and antique pronouns. Current readers and critics routinely condemn it as artificial, intellectually facile, and formulaic, and as a mark both of elitism and naïvété. The work of contemporary rhyming poets has not always served to invalidate those claims. When end rhyme succeeds, most readers will never appreciate how hard you toiled over it, but when a single end rhyme flops, even in a poem full of skilled rhyming, you can bank on its becoming the focus, and probably an occasion for bitter mockery. This is precisely why we need to get together and talk about how to do it well. 

Joshua Mehigan’s first book, The Optimist, was a finalist for the 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second, Accepting the Disaster, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2014 and subsequently cited as a best book of the year in the TLS, The New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. His poems have appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Poetry, which awarded him its 2013 Levinson Prize. He has received writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (2011) and the Guggenheim Foundation (2015).

Two-Day Workshops/Seminars

How Can Satirical Poetry Work in a Self-Satirizing World? (WED & THUR PM)
with Melissa Balmain

Satire, including satirical poetry, has long been hailed as a potent tool. As was once said of journalism, it can “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” But how do we write effective satire when the world often feels as outrageous as anything we can make up? When public leaders claim immigrants are snacking on house pets, and accuse each other of having sex with furniture? The answer is that we learn by example. In this workshop, we’ll explore works old and new as we seek ways to speak truth to power in the age of absurdity.

Melissa Balmain edits Light, America’s longest-running journal of comic verse, and teaches at the University of Rochester. Often satirical, her poems and prose have appeared (or are forthcoming) in The American BystanderCrab Orchard ReviewEcotoneThe Hopkins ReviewLiterary MattersMcSweeney’sThe New YorkerThe New York Times, Nimrod, Poetry Daily, and Rattle. Her latest poetry collection is Satan Talks to His Therapist (Paul Dry Books). She needs little encouragement to read the title poem aloud in a headband adorned with devil horns.

Small Songs, Big Stories: Bringing Situation to Lyric Poems (THUR & FRI PM)
WITH CHAD ABUSHANAB

Big things can come in small packages. And in terms of poems, big stories often reside in short verses. Formal-minded poets are always looking to get more and more content out of short lyric forms, and that’s exactly what we’re up to here. In this 2-day workshop, we will discuss strategies to create drama and situation in our lyrics, writing and revising shorter works to act as windows into something more than what’s on the page — giving our speakers a sense of presence and authenticity that both precedes and succeeds the poems themselves. Participants are encouraged to send shorter poems (20 lines or fewer) in advance of the workshop.

Chad Abushanab is the author of The Last Visit, which won the 2018 Donald Justice Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Sewanee Review, Ecotone, The Believer, Best New Poets, Southern Poetry Review, and many other publications. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Bemidji State University located in the north woods of Minnesota. Read more at www.chadabushanab.com.

pREPARE TO PUBLISH: FINDING YOUR PLACE IN THE POETRY WORLD (WED & THUR PM)
with David Groff

In this workshop, we will look at a packet of six poems that each poet feels ready to send out. We’ll workshop one poem, and talk about how you can (1) select poems that speak to each other as a mini-chapbook and that also reveal your range as a writer; (2) choose magazines and other venues that will be receptive to your work; (3) evaluate contests, residencies, conferences, and book and chapbook opportunities;  and most importantly, (4) articulate yourself as a poet by developing and sharing an artistic statement that presents your work distinctively in the context of current American poetry.

David Groff’s most recent book, Live in Suspense, was published by Trio House PressHis previous book Clay, also from Trio House, was chosen by Michael Waters for the Louise Bogan Award. His first collection, Theory of Devolution, was selected by Mark Doty for the National Poetry Series. He is the coeditor of Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS (Alyson) and Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners (University of Wisconsin Press). An independent book editor, he teaches poetry, nonfiction, and publishing in the MFA creative writing program at the City College of New York.  www.davidgroff.com

VILLANELLES: THE HOT, NOT SO NEW, FORM (THUR & FRI PM)
with Allison Joseph

This class will explore the origins of the villanelle, will pay homage to the canonical examples of the form, and will detail the ongoing variation that make this form so profound with contemporary readers and writers alike. What about the villanelle’s structure, refrain, and rhyme make it so easy to attempt but so hard to perfect? What variations on the canonical form of the villanelle have arisen to lure more poets into the fold? This class will look at those familiar examples from Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, and Theodore Roethke, and will also cover variations such as the blues villanelle, the terzanelle, and the contoured villanelle.

Allison Joseph lives in Carbondale, Illinois, where she is on the faculty at Southern Illinois University. Her most recent collections of poems are Lexicon (Red Hen Press, 2021, PBTS Best Book Award winner), Any Proper Weave (Kelsay Books, 2022), Speak and Spell (Glass Lyre Press, 2022), and Confessions of a Barefaced Woman (Red Hen Press, 2018). Confessions of a Barefaced Woman won the 2019 Feathered Quill Book Award and was a finalist for the 2019 NAACP Image Award. She was named Illinois Author of the Year for 2022 by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. Her poems have appeared in the New York Times and in the Best American Poetry Series. She is the widow of beloved poet and editor Jon Tribble.

30-Minute Personal Consultation

With Anna M. Evans

Have you always wanted to write in meter, but find that its rhythms and subtleties elude you? Or, do you have a poem or poem project which you can’t quite get RIGHT? Have no fear, Anna M. Evans is here to help. Her undergraduate-tested method of “teaching” meter will have you effortlessly creating iambic pentameter in no time. And she never met a line she couldn’t fix (← that’s iambic pentameter right there, admittedly with a first foot anapest). Sign up for a 30-minute tutorial, and Anna will email you to arrange a time convenient to meet with you at the conference.

Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists’ Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her collections are: Sisters & Courtesans (White Violet Press), Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic (Able Muse Press), and States of Grace, forthcoming from Able Muse Press. Visit her online at annamevans.com.

One-Day Workshops

WRITING AS THE OBSERVER IN HISTORICAL SETTINGS (THUR AM)
WITH AUSTIN ALLEN

Depicting scenes from history makes special demands on the poet’s imagination. How to write with authority about times and places distant from your own? How to render nuanced social and political context with the vivid compression poetry requires? In this workshop, we’ll discuss poets who have done all this and more—from Robert Hayden to Eavan Boland to Catherine Tufariello—and consider what lessons their work might hold for our own practice. Participants should bring one original poem whose speaker is a witness or narrator in a historical setting (think Boland’s “Quarantine”).

Austin Allen’s debut poetry collection, Pleasures of the Game (Waywiser Press, 2016), was awarded the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. His poetry has recently appeared in The Hopkins Review, The Sewanee Review, The Yale Review, and Literary Matters, and his criticism has been featured by the Poetry Foundation, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and other outlets. He is a former Walter E. Dakin Fellow in Poetry at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and has taught creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Cincinnati.

Crafting Formal Verse: Dodging Common Pitfalls (WED AM)
WITH Nicole Caruso Garcia

Formal verse can be transcendent, but crafting it comes with unique pitfalls. A poem may be technically correct, yet collapse under its own weight, sounding forced, archaic, stilted, unintentionally humorous, or just plain meh. But several subtle yet vital strategies—considerations of rhyme, meter, and beyond—can address these deficiencies. How can we make those strategies our own? In this nuts-and-bolts workshop, we will explore examples by poets such as James Merrill, Patricia Smith, Rhina P. Espaillat, A. E. Stallings, and others—to demystify the common pitfalls of formal verse. Participants will come away with techniques they can employ immediately. Participants may wish to bring in a poem draft. If time allows, we will review drafts in the workshop. 

Nicole Caruso Garcia’s full-length debut OXBLOOD (Able Muse Press) received the International Book Award for narrative poetry. Her work appears in LightMezzo CamminONE ARTPlumeRattleRHINO, and elsewhere. Her work has received the Willow Review Award and won a 2021 Best New Poets honor. She serves as associate poetry editor at Able Muse and as an executive board member at Poetry by the Sea. Visit her at nicolecarusogarcia.com.

Dramatic Monologue: Take Time to Pretend (TUE PM)
with Midge goldberg

Want a chance (for a page or so) to be anyone you want, anywhere, any time? Come explore dramatic monologues (also known as persona poems)! We’ll discuss creating characters, giving them their own voices distinct from the poet’s, and using dialogue, meter, place, and the silent listener to enhance the poem. We’ll read poems that are written from different perspectives, including age, background, or gender; speak in the voice of a well-known fictional, historical, or mythical character; and use a specific form or format to talk to the poem’s listener. Spend some time pretending with dramatic monologues!

Midge Goldberg’s newest collection, To Be Opened After My Death, was published by Kelsay Books in 2021. She is also the editor of the anthology Outer Space: 100 Poems (Cambridge University Press, 2022). She received the Richard Wilbur Poetry Award for her book Snowman’s Code and was a winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Most recently she was a finalist for the Plough 2023 Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award. Her poems, reviews, essays, and translations have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Hopkins ReviewLight, Appalachia100 Poems: The RomanticsMezzo Cammin, and on Garrison Keillor’s A Writer’s Almanac. Her other books include Flume Ride and the children’s book My Best Ever Grandpa. She is a graduate of Yale University and has an M.F.A. from the University of New Hampshire. She lives in Chester, New Hampshire.

RETHINKING YOUR WRITING PROCESS: WRITING VISCERAL POETRY (FRI AM)
WITH CLARE ROSSINI

In a letter written in 1924, Hart Crane wrote, “I try to make my poems experiences, I rather don’t try, when they are good they are.”  I think we all know what Crane means: the best poems seem to go beyond recording or describing experience.  Instead, the poems themselves are experiences, their form, voice, language, or imagery so alive that when reading them, we lose ourselves in the poem’s words and music.   We may describe such poems as Emily Dickinson did, who said,  “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”  Emily Dickinson here describes a poem whose effect on the reader is not just aesthetic or intellectual but physical. Visceral.

In this workshop, we’ll explore what seem to be the essential aspects of visceral poetry—using plenty of examples along the way—and will suggest strategies for re-thinking your writing process to harness that power in our work.  Come ready to have the top of your head taken off.

Clare Rossini’s poems and essays have appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including The Paris ReviewThe Kenyon ReviewThe Iowa ReviewPoetry, and The Best American Poetry series, where her poems have appeared twice, most recently in 2020.  Clare has published three books; the first, Winter Morning with Crow, won the Akron Poetry Prize.  She recently co-edited an anthology titled The Poetry of Capital (U of Wisconsin, 2020). She’s received grants and awards from a variety of organizations, including the State of Connecticut, the Minnesota Arts Board, the Bush Foundation, and the Maxwell Shepherd Foundation; she’s been awarded  residencies at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the American Academy in Rome.  After teaching at the college level for over forty years—including twenty-three years at Trinity—Clare recently retired.  She continues to teach at conferences and is laying plans for an environmental organization involving poets and poetry. 

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