Poetry Playhouse

Enter the Poetry Playhouse to discover what you have to say to yourself and world, by generating lots of new poems while you explore poets and poems, craft and form. This class invites you — whether you’re newer to poetry, a seasoned poet ready for some new sparks and ideas, or ready to return to poetry — to write and receive feedback on up to 20 new poems while learning about your own callings as a poet and deepening your critical sensibilities in shaping, revising, and celebrating your poetry.

Each week takes us into another room of possibilities for our poetry, including the living room (writing about life and living at large), the family room (writing about family and ancestors), the bedroom (writing about the dark and the wild, including dreams and sex), and the dining room (writing about nourishment, intimacy, and food). Along the way, we’ll explore the poetry and lives of weekly featured poets (via writing, videos, and links), including William Stafford, Sharon Olds, Li Young Lee, Grace Paley, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pattiann Rogers, William Trowbridge, Rita Dove, W.S. Merwin, Jane Hirshfield, and Joy Harjo.

Each weekly online lesson includes:

• Reflections on this week’s room (topic) and on the writing life.
• An essay about a featured poet, a sampling of their poems, and fascinating links to see, hear, and learn more about the poet.
• Playshop prompts you can use or riff off of to write on this week’s topic.
• A sharing forum to post up to three of your new poems, read and comment on others’ poems, and receive comments from Caryn and fellow students on your poems.
• Craft Corner for an in-depth craft lesson, such as trusting your images, working with sound, line and stanza breaks, and ample food for thought on the romance of revision.
• Form Play to try out or revisit poetic forms, including the sonnet, ode, lyric, sestina, pantoum, haiku, and more.

Additionally, we will meet altogether for an hour Zoom session at the beginning, middle, and end of the class to get to know each other, share our discoveries and breakthroughs, and celebrate our writing.

You will receive weekly written feedback in response to the poems you post from Caryn and fellow students, including questions to ponder in considering revisions and what works and needs work with an eye toward helping you find your own best answers. Each week features a lively mix of videos, sometimes podcasts, and links to pertinent essays and examples. In addition, Caryn will be available for two short (20-minute) one-on-one Zoom sessions — during which time, you can go over specific poems in more detail — with you in weeks two or three and again in weeks nine or ten.

Who this course is for:

Because this class is aimed toward generating many new poems — plus learning more about poets, poetry, craft, and forms along the way — it’s especially effective for people who have been writing, reading, and studying poetry already on their own and/or in classes or coaching. You may be ready to immerse yourself more fully in poetry or perhaps you’re returning to poetry after life got in the way. This class would also be effective for a seasoned poet looking for new doors into the craft, possibilities, and passion of poetry.

You’ll post two new poems a week, comment on three or more of your peers’ posted new poems, and peruse, watch, listen to, and/or read carefully-curated resources and short essays on the guest poet, the craft of poetry, and poetic forms. All in all, each you should expect to spend at least two or three hours reading and clicking through links for weekly lessons, plus whatever time writing poetry takes.

Learning and Writing Goals

Learning Goals

In this course, you will:

• Write from a wide variety of prompts, often based on poems from U.S. and global writers.
• Establish and deepen your writing and revision practice.
• Strengthen your craft of poetry, including how to enhance sensory images, sound and rhythm, line and stanza structure, and tempo and music of your poems.
• Revise your poems to bring more vitality and originality and more of your innate voice and truth to the surface.
• Read the work of dozens of poets new and already-known to you from new perspectives to find greater insight into writing and living.
• Experience using various poetic forms, including the sonnet, haiku, pantoum, sestina, list poem, and more.

Writing Goals

In this course, you will have the opportunity to:

• Write 20 new poems and try your hand at tried and true revision approaches.
• Experiment with a bevy of poetic forms, including the ode, praise poem, pantoum, sonnet, and more.
• Receive encouraging and focused feedback from fellow students and from Caryn.
• Work one-on-one with Caryn in two mini coaching sessions on your poetry, writing practice, or next steps.
• Write together in real time with fellow students and share your poems and discoveries in three Zoom sessions.

Zoom Schedule

We will meet on Zoom three times during the course on Tuesdays January 11, February 18, and March 18 from 6-7 PM Eastern. 

You may also schedule two short (20-minute) one-on-one Zoom sessions — during which time, you can go over specific poems in more detail — in weeks two or three and again in weeks nine or ten.

Weekly Syllabus

Week One: The Playroom—Creating with Abandon

This week focuses on playing with words as a way to take creative risks and invite greater originality into our writing. The playroom helps us warm up for our writing, break out of old habits or mindsets that lead us away from experimenting with language, and take creative risks for poetry that fresh and alive.

Featured poet: William Trowbridge. Form Play: The list poem. Craft Corner: Sensory images.

Week Two: The Living Room—Drawing from Real Life

By leaning into our life’s experiences, we can find ample material for poetry. This week, we focus on what we’ve lived and are currently living as source material.

Featured poet: William Stafford. Form Play: The Lyric. Craft Corner: The Power of the Precise.

Week Three: The Family Room—Writing from Childhood

Flannery O’Connor once said, “Anyone who survived a childhood has enough material to last him the rest of his days.” This week we’ll turn to childhood experiences and perceptions for new poetry.

Featured poet: Sharon Olds. Form Play: The ode. Craft Corner: Sound and rhythm.

Week Four: The Kitchen—The Nourishment of Intimate Exchanges

Looking at who we’ve broken bread with over the years opens vast possibilities for poetry. We also have ample possiblities for strengthening our use of sensory images while exploring the themes of intimacy, nourishment, and memory writing about food and meals.

Featured poet: Grace Paley. Form play: The sonnet. Craft Corner: The line.

Week Five: The Bedroom—Dreams, Sex and Other Adventures in the Dark

By witnessing and taking note of what makes us wild and takes us beyond daytime stories about who we are, we can access new ways into our poems. Poetry, more than everyday prose, is also a more direct route into our unconscious and our dreams.

Featured poet: Rainer Maria Rilke. Form Play: The pantoum. Craft Corner: The stanza.

Week Six: The Bathroom—Writing as Release & Renewal

We turn our focus this week to ways in which poetry can bring us clarity and new beginnings. We’ll also look at how poetry can speak to letting go of what no longer serves us.

Featured poet: W. S. Merwin. Form Play: Haiku. Craft Corner: Beginnings.

Week Seven: The Basement—Drawing from the Ancestors

By researching our roots, we can find material and guidance for our poetry. We can also access memories and more ancient stories informing our lives now, and in the process, find greater freedom in writing and life.

Featured poet: Rita Dove. Form Play: The sestina. Craft Corner: Endings.

Week Eight: The Attic—Rediscovering Our Treasures and Stories

Looking at how writing can bring us home to our soul and help us access our treasurers land us in powerful, new poetry. We can learn a great deal by what we treasured and still treasure, whether in storage in our homes or psyches.

Featured poet: Jane Hirshfield. Form Play: The praise poem. Craft Corner: Working with space and silence.

Week Nine: The Front Porch—Writing in Community

We can use our writing to make and keep community, and also find community to sustain us as writers. Poetry is also a public form of putting ourselves and our truths out into the world.

Featured poet: Joy Harjo. Craft Corner: Revision, Part 1

WEEK TEN: The Backyard and Beyond—Writing About Home and Beyond

Focusing on the living world in our background and beyond, we can connect with new ways to use language, particularly in writing about what’s beyond human language. Poetry can also enable us to time travel through our own lives and beyond what we previously saw as our limits.

Featured poet: Ada Limón. Craft Corner: Revision, Part 2

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