Saturdays, January 10, 24, 31 and February 7, 2026, 1:00PM - 3:00PM

Meetings will take place in the Poetry Center's Alumni Room, Room 205; limit 12 students. 

Twelve-year cancer survivor and prize-winning poet, Pamela Uschuk, will lead this four-week generative poetry workshop for people who have dealt in any way with a left-threatening disease. Whether it be as a patient, as a family member or as a friend. This is not the same class that she taught at the Poetry Center in 2024. Both materials and prompts are new. The moment a person receives the diagnosis of cancer or any life-threatening disease such as ALS, Parkinsons, MS, etc. the world stops for that person. There is a huge silence. Diagnosis changes forever the life of that person as well as every relative and friend of that person. No one is untouched. That diagnosis is ultimately humbling, sometimes enlightening and very often terrifying. Not only the patient, but friends, spouses and relatives of that person are forced to face his/her/their own fear of death. And, they have to deal with grief. How can one heal the body, the mind and psyche? How does one write about something so enormous that it seems often beyond the imagination? In this generative poetry writing intensive, we will look at how other writers like Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Joy Harjo, Meena Alexander, Audre Lorde, Mary Tall Mountain, Carolyn Kizer, Marilyn Hacker, Richard Siken, Anne Sexton, Lucille Clifton, Rainy Dawn Ortiz and others have written about their own diagnoses and dire illnesses. This workshop is open to everyone. Participants will receive writing prompts, will have time to write and share their work with other participants.

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.