With the goals of sparking authenticity, community, and healing, The Poetry Society of New York's workshops are a space where writers can come together and tap into their collective creative potential.
They are curated with a focus on conversation, collaboration, and of course, creation!
VIRTUAL WORKSHOPS
PSNY's workshops surround a weekly theme and follow an LWS flow: lecture, generative free-writes, and a sharing session of the magic produced in the free-write! For example, we’ve had workshops on Self-Love Spells, focusing on redirecting the creative glamor of ~true love~ back at oneself, as well as on the intersection of pop culture and poetry (think mashing up Phoebe Bridgers lyrics with dialogue from your favorite movie).
They're each 1 hour and 15 minutes long and meant to be generative, fun, and accessible; they're open to all lovers of poetry regardless of age, location, previous experience with PSNY, or experience with poetry in general, and admission is $20 (all PSNY members have access to discount codes).
FREE VERSE
Monthly Free Workshops for BIPOC Creatives—also known as our Free Verse Initiative—are workshops taught by and for Black, Indigenous, and other Persons of Color with an interest in poetry. We invite folks to connect in this safe, generative, BIPOC-centered space: to share work, experiences, and discourse. At the end of every workshop, we welcome the sharing of resources, such as literature, community events, and grants available for application. Respectfully and consensually connecting with other members outside of the space is encouraged.
If you are not BIPOC-identifying, we kindly invite you to attend other PSNY events. While topics do not necessarily center around being BIPOC, this community space is designed specifically for the BIPOC experience.
Attendees of our Monthly Free Workshops for BIPOC Creatives receive a 50% off discount code for our Weekly Virtual Workshops!
VIRTUAL INTENSIVES
What makes a poem, and how can we challenge the various conventions of the genre—voice, form, and technique—to find new possibilities for our poems? How do we talk about poetry constructively and critically?
In our six-week Virtual Writing Intensives, we focus on generating new work, closely examining the work of more established poets, and reading a range of passages and essays on poetics. From the brass tacks of a poem’s architecture to the atmosphere materialized from sound, image, and metaphor, our Virtual Writing Intensives offers a space for writers at any level—from published poets to those writing their very first stanza—to take a deep dive into makings of a poem.
We begin each session with a generative writing activity and a reading exploring a specific component or concept of poetry. We then spend the rest of the workshop alternating between groups and workshopping each individual’s poem as a group. Students are required to submit one poem beforehand, and to prepare comments for their peers’ work each week.
Our capacity is limited to 15 students per workshop.