Mondays, 10:30am - 12pm (Pacific Time), Oct 5 - Nov 9 | ZOOM

In this generative workshop we will explore how the image works in different kinds of poems. From deep images, to leaping images, to controlling images. With poets such as Garrett Hongo, Dorianne Laux, Lucille Clifton, Larry Levis and others as our guides we will write our own image driven poems while deepening and strengthening our relationship to poetry and to language itself. Open to all poets.

Thursdays, 6:30 - 8pm (Pacific Time), Oct 8 - Nov 12 | ZOOM

Place shapes us before we have words for it. This workshop looks at how poets have written about landscape, region, and the ground they know, or have lost, with a keen eye for detail, earned veracity, and vitality. Over six weeks we will read poets for whom place is sacred ground: Heaney on the Irish bog, Jeffers on the California coast, Forché on Central America torn by war. We will look how the physical world enters into the poem and what it carries when it does, paying particular attention to what arises in times of conflict. Writers will bring their own landscapes to the table and develop new ways of translating the signals they carry to the page. 

Sundays, 10am - 12pm (Pacific Time), Oct 18 - Nov 22 | ZOOM

How do we fill our emotional and creative bowls when they are emptied? How do we write when dealing with stress, grief, or anxiety? I believe we can turn to the physical world for guidance and support. In this 6-week generative class, we will write and share together, exploring our own immediate work alongside poems by Michael Dickman, Katie Peterson, Callie Siskel, Erin Clarke, Robin Coste Lewis, Major Jackson, and others. Join me and let's fill our bowls together! Limit: 12 writers.

Mondays, 10:30am - 12pm (Pacific Time), Nov 16 - Dec 21 | ZOOM

Oregon poet William Stafford once remarked that poetry is "just talk, with a little luck in it.” In this generative workshop we will explore a plainspoken poetry, the poetry that does not yell "Here I am! Look at me!" but instead relies on its own steady and local music, and a little luck. With poets such as Matsuo Basho, Kobayashi Issa, Jane Kenyon, Harryette Mullen, Marie Howe, and William Stafford as our guides we will write our way into new poems and a lot of luck. Open to all poets.

Elevate Your Manuscript with David Biespiel

Are you wanting to send out your poetry manuscript to contests and publishing houses? Feel close, not sure it's ready, want one last look? Or maybe it's you want to know if you're on the right path? Open to reordering, cutting, finding gaps that need to be filled? Start the new year with a fresh take on your poetry manuscript. Get attention to the whole book. Together, one-on-one, we'll consult, reflect, and strategize. These one-on-one manuscript consultations include: two (2) one-hour Zoom or in-person meetings, a close reading and hand-made marks poem by poem on your manuscript, notes and feedback for you to use to guide your next steps.