Yearlong in Poetry

This class meets IN PERSON at Hugo House in Capitol Hill.

If you’ve been longing for a sustained writing practice—or a community to help you shape the poems already knocking around inside you—this yearlong poetry cohort offers both.

Over the course of nine months, you’ll write regularly (in class and at home), respond to weekly prompts, and engage in close readings of contemporary poetry. Through ongoing workshop sessions and guided discussion, you’ll deepen your craft and sharpen your voice—building toward a collection of new work.

You’ll submit poems for publication, reflect on your evolving process, and gather resources to support your writing beyond the class itself. By the end of the year, you’ll leave with 20–30 pages of polished poetry, a few publication submissions under your belt, and a writing practice built to last.

This class focuses on:

• Generative Writing: Focuses on producing new writing through prompts and exercises.
• Workshop: Students submit work and receive feedback from the instructor and/or classmates.
• Community & Connection: Emphasizes collaboration, peer connection, and social writing experiences.

What to expect:

• Project-Based: Students will work toward completing a specific project (e.g., a story, poem, or essay).
• Publishing: Covers submission strategies, query letters, or publishing tips.
• Reading & Analysis: Published works will be closely read as part of the learning process.
• Class Discussion: Facilitated class conversation
• Prompts & Exercises: Class features guided writing activities.
• In-Class Writing Time: Class will include dedicated time to write.
• Instructor Feedback: Students receive direct feedback from the instructor.
• Peer Feedback: Students share and critique each other’s work.
• 2-3 hours of reading and/or writing outside of class per week.

—

Q&A with Yearlong in Poetry instructor Bill Carty

What do students need in order to take this class (craft knowledge, specific skills, projects, etc.)?

There is no particular prior experience necessary for the class. The key is a strong commitment to learning over the course of the year, and the class often includes a mix of students, from near beginners to graduate degree holders. If you have a particular project (whether a chapbook or full-length collection) you are working on, the class will offer an opportunity to share that work, but many students move through the class week-to-week from poem-to-poem.

What is the community-building experience like in this class?

The beginning weeks of the class are dedicated to fostering our classroom community, getting to know each other as writers and people beforewe begin to share work in a workshop format. Much of the class remains student-directed, and the content of the class will come to follow the interests of the students. We will also attend local poetry readings as a class, as well as visit local museums and other arts institutions in order to find inspiration with the x

What are you most excited to share and/or experience with your students?

Over the course of the year, I am excited to share the work of an exciting range of contemporary and historical poets. We will look at two books of poetics, Paisley Rekdal's "Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens," and Mary Ruefle's "Madness, Rack and Honey," to help guide our class, as well as selections from a range of other poets. Writers we read in last year’s Yearlong in Poetry included Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Cedar Sigo, Terrance Hayes, Inger Christensen, Anne Carson, David Henderson, Etel Adnan, Joe Brainard, Ariana Reines, and Rick Barot, among many, many others! This coming year, we will explore more multimedia poetry sources too, including film, audio, and interviews.

What is your philosophy on being an artist?

Describing the artistic process, poets often turn to metaphor. Emily Dickinson approximates its sensory effects: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” Marianne Moore speaks of “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” In graduate school, I was fortunate enough to take a workshop with Robert Creeley, one in which he described writing poetry as “leaning into an empty swimming pool and hearing the sound of water.” What I like about each of these definitions is how they present poetry as an act of the imagination interacting with the real, physical world. I think that poetry is most successful when it brings together the writer's skills of observation, personal experience, and the transformative powers enabled by the imagination.

Anything else you'd like to share with your students?

In terms of class structure, most weeks will include a short in-class writing prompt, a discussion of published poems, a discussion of poems written by class members, and then a weekly take home writing prompt. When we workshop, it can be fairly informal, with students often discussing each other's poems in small groups. Some weeks we may do a full group discussion of a poem. Generally, students are given the chance to share the work nearly every week. At the end of the year, we spend more time looking at a selection (10-15) pages of the students' collected poems.

—

Students say…

“Thank you for offering this experience. Bill was a charming, patient and thoughtful instructor. I learned how to stretch and expose my thoughts and creativity in a way I have not done in the past.”

“This class had such a profound impact on the quality of my work. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to participate in it throughout the year!”

“Bill was an excellent, incredibly knowledgeable, inclusive and supportive instructor. I appreciated his teaching approach and the breadth of poetry he introduced me to. I also really appreciated the warmth, presence, and candor of my cohort of poets.”

"This is my second year taking this class with Bill, and I might just sign up for a third. Bill does a wonderful job of structuring the class so that there are interesting readings and writing prompts that encourage my productivity between classes, but class time isn't entirely beholden to "the plan". Bill does a good job of gauging the class's interest in certain topics and then adjusting accordingly.”

Registration Dates:

• August 12: Member registration opens at 10:30 am PT   
• August 19: General registration opens at 10:30 am PT 
• August 26: Scholarships open
• August 31: Last day of Early Bird discount

This class is not eligible for a member discount. Learn more here »