Manuscript Workshop with Kathleen Ossip

New poets spend a long time developing a basic sense of mastery. Eventually, they have 10 or 20 or 30 poems they are proud of. What next? For many poets, the answer is: Putting together a chapbook or book-length manuscript. After spending so much time crafting individual poems, it can be difficult to see the big picture. In this workshop, students will explore the manuscript process: grouping, organizing, pruning and adding to their book or chapbook. Students will spend class time reading and discussing their manuscripts, focusing on how the individual poems cohere as a satisfying whole. Students will also talk about the process of seeking publication for your manuscript.

Kathleen Ossip is the author of The Cold War, which was named one of Publishers Weekly’s 100 best books of 2011; The Search Engine, which was selected by Derek Walcott for the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize; and Cinephrastics, a chapbook of movie poems. She teaches at The New School and online for The Poetry School in London.