2026 Palo Verde Bloom Festival Poetry Contest
We’re holding a poetry contest in celebration of the Palo Verde tree and their vibrant yellow blooms! The winning submission will commemorate the inaugural Palo Verde Bloom Festival in April 2026, and the author will receive a $500 prize and be named the official Poet Laureate of the 2026 Palo Verde Bloom Festival. The laureateship will include opportunities to be featured throughout the month-long festival. All University of Arizona students (both undergraduate and graduate) are eligible to apply.
Submit: January 6th - Feb. 20th
Wednesday, January 28, 2026, 5:00PM - 7:00PM
Meeting will take place in the Poetry Center's Alumni Room, Room 205; limit 12 students.
Midrash is a Hebrew word meaning "seek" or "investigate," originally referring to how ancient rabbis re-told biblical stories, spinning them so they would be meaningful to their own time and place. There has been a resurgence of the form in our time. In this workshop, writers have the opportunity to find new meanings in old stories. We laugh a lot doing this exercise, and sometimes we cry. We always make unpredictable discoveries.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 5:00PM - 7:00PM
Meeting will take place in the Poetry Center's Alumni Room, Room 205; limit 12 students.
In this class, we will explore the history of two literary forms, emanating from different parts of the world: the sonnet and the ghazal. We will discuss their rules and evolution through the ages, and, in the ghazal’s case, across languages. We will read ghazals by Shadab Zeest Hashmi, Agha Shahid Ali, and Mimi Khalvati, and sonnets by Terrance Hayes, Hieu Minh Nguyen, and Carl Phillips. We will ask: What makes a sonnet a sonnet? What makes a ghazal a ghazal? How can the constraint of form liberate us, allowing for creative poetic leaps?
Saturdays, April 4, 11, 18, and 25, 2026, 10:00AM - 12:00PM
Meetings will take place in the Poetry Center's Alumni Room, Room 205; limit 12 students.
This class is a generative writing workshop that will proceed from readings of several of the prominent Beat Poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Phillip Whalen, Joanne Kyger, Bob Kaufman, and Diane DiPrima. We read to understand how they conceived poetry, its possible methods, and its mission. We include brief meditation periods because the poets were deeply involved with Zen Buddhism, and through mindful contemplation we will come to write. The writing in the class will be new writing, begun after reading and meditation, in ways students may find new to their practice, and compelling for their future. Each class will include time for conversations about what students have created during the class.
All poems we read will be provided by the Instructor. Bring paper and a writing instrument. We anticipate writing students, but the course is also open to artists interested in the Beat movement, who may wish to draw or sketch during the course.