Writing the Short Poem

A 2-hour craft class for Paid Subscribers ✨

Dear Friends,

If you’re anything like me, you marvel at how poets manage to pack expressive power into 10 or fewer lines.

Short poems are dazzling because they accomplish the same magic as longer poems do in a compressed space. They articulate something ineffable or fleeting while inviting the form to imitate and encapsulate the thought. They are at once defined and spacious, brief and ongoing—they raise questions that the reader will continue to contemplate in the silence that proceeds the poem.

They are frequently also epigrammatic, imparting wisdom or insight in clear yet mysterious ways.

Today, I wanted to share a 2-hour craft class I taught on short poems. It’s rainy and gray here, and I thought it might be a nice weekend activity to undertake.

So, set aside two hours, grab your notebook and pen, and join me. Past me will guide you through a discussion of poems by Andrea Cohen, W.S. Merwin, Timothy Liu, A.R. Ammons, and others as we look for common principles and strategies that could be applied to our own writing.

I hope this class is a welcome addition to your poetry arsenal. I’ll leave it up for the rest of the month, so be sure to watch it before then.

And please add your own short poems (or suggestions of short poems you love by others) to the June Poetry Today Thread. My June 27th Poems For Your Weekend will spotlight our community.

Love,

xM