6-Week Workshop: Neil Shepard: The Whole Poem

The Whole Poem

From first draft to final draft, we require strategies for seeing the whole poem, both its full potential for content and its most satisfying form. We require, as Charles Olson said, the intense perception of the first draft – to “see” not only the spark but all of the light that makes a poem glow. Then we need to “re-see” the poem, practicing the kind of deep revision that leads us to reconsider everything from word choice and vivid image to metaphoric subtext, grammatical pattern, and inner music of the poem. We’ll use poems from literary magazines to examine specific technical issues, but we’ll use your own poems as the focus and force of workshop discussion. In addition, we’ll consider writing exercises that might steer you toward new strategies and discoveries in making a poem.

6 Wednesdays  |  Jan 24 – March 6 (Skip Feb 14)  |  6-8:30pm ET  |  $360 ($320 for Members)

(Jan 24, 31, Feb 7, 21, 28, and Mar 6)

In-person meetings will be at Poets House, 10 River Terrace, New York, NY 10282.

All are welcome, space is limited. A limited number of need-based scholarships are available. Please email support@poetshouse.org with any questions.

About the educator:

Neil Shepard’s most recent book, How It Is: Selected Poems, was published in 2018 by Salmon Poetry (Ireland), and in 2019, he edited Vermont Poets & Their Craft (Green Writers Press, VT). His new collection, The Book of Failures, is due in January 2024 from Madville Publishing. His poems appear in such magazines as the Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, New England Review, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Sewanee Review, Southern Review, and online at Poetry Daily, Verse Daily and Poem-a-Day. Shepard has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland, and he has been a visiting writer at the Chautauqua Writers Institute, The Frost Place, and Ossabaw Island Writers Retreat. He founded and directed for eight years the Writing Program at the Vermont Studio Center; he also founded the literary magazine Green Mountains Review and was Senior Editor for a quarter-century. He taught for many years in the BFA writing program at Johnson State College (VT) and in the low-residency MFA writing program at Wilkes University (PA). He is currently the editor of the online literary magazine Plant-Human Quarterly. These days, he splits his time between Vermont and NYC.