Warp and Weft: Weaving Free Verse Poetry from Life

As a weaver creates a tapestry from patterns of yarn, choosing colors and textures, warp and weft, so the poet can make art from the vicissitudes of daily life.

This six-week generative course is for everyone who is curious about poetry, passionate about writing poetry, or both. We will examine how we can turn life events—from the everyday and prosaic to the heartstopping and history-making—into poetry. This is a fun, challenging course for poets who want to experiment with free verse, the literary version of abstract art. Experienced poets and beginners alike are welcomed to this workshop. All you need is an open mind, a creative drive, and curiosity about free verse poetry.

Weekly, we will meet on Zoom to examine and discuss poems by contemporary working poets and by fellow students. We’ll explore one contemporary free verse poem each week, analyzing how the poet uses poetic elements such as rhyme, alliteration, assonance, repetition, inversion, line and stanza breaks, direct address, and more—to turn life into art. You will learn to identify poetic techniques, and will offer feedback to your peers, but most of our time will be spent writing poems of our own, sharing them aloud, then writing again.

During this course, you’ll develop as a working poet by crafting finely-woven, carefully-edited free verse ready for submission to editors. Beginning with an idea for a poem, or with a few scraps of poems that never reached completion, you’ll experiment with prompts that will help you develop and complete several free verse poems—ready to share or perhaps even to publish.

Prior students are welcome to take this course again (and many do!), as the poems and prompts change each session. 

Learning and Writing Goals

Learning Goals:

By the end of this six-week course, students will:

• Learn and use poetic techniques and terms including alliteration, assonance, repetition, inversion, epistolary, imagery, slant rhyme, and more.
• Become familiar with a variety of free verse by poets including Rachel Hadas, Carl Phillips, Robert Hayden, Liz Rosenberg, course instructor Anna Scotti, and others.
• Have a strong sense of how to distinguish free verse from formal poetry.

Writing Goals:

By the end of this six-week course, students will:

• Generate a portfolio of work-in-progress from weekly writing exercises.
• Have a minimum of two poems polished and ready to submit to journals for publication, or approaching readiness pending another edit or two.
• Gain new tools and techniques for writing, critiquing, and understanding feedback.

Zoom Schedule

We will meet on Zoom every Thursday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. This is a ninety-minute class, but if enrollment exceeds five poets, we will increase to two hours.

Each week, before we write from a prompt, we’ll quickly and simply define a couple of poetic terms, reinforcing what veterans know, while painlessly elucidating for others, keeping it fun, active and never stuffy. We’ll spend most of each session writing our own poems, inspired by the work of other poets and our own lives.

Weekly Syllabus

Why Take a Free Verse Poetry Writing Course with Writers.com?

• We welcome writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
• Small groups keep our online writing courses lively and intimate.
• Work through your weekly lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
• Share and discuss your work with fellow writers in a supportive course environment.
• Award-winning instructor Anna Scotti will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.

Click the Enroll Now button below, enter your details on the Checkout page,
and reserve your spot in the course.

$445.00 Original price was: $445.00.$380.00Current price is: $380.00.Enroll Now