Fall Virtual Poetry Intensive: Befriending Form 101
Join The Poetry Society of New York for a limited-capacity, six-week poetry workshop.
When: September 24 – October 29, 2025 (Wednedsays, 6:30–8:30 PM EST)
Duration: 6 Weeks
Format: Virtual, via Zoom
Workshop Overview:
Many poets writing today grew into the genre during a time of what I affectionately call "free verse hegemony." While free verse still dominates many poetry publications and performances, a small but steady rise in the popularity of form poetry is now emerging. Think Jericho Brown's new form, the duplex. Think Terrance Hayes's book of sonnets, American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin. Think Diane Seuss's book of nontraditional sonnets, frank: sonnets. Where does this turn in the tide leave those of us who grew up on the line broken whenever and wherever we wanted?
For the form-curious or form-loving, form-hating or form-ignorant, this intensive will introduce and explain what form is as well as what tools can be employed to create form. Over the course of the 6 weeks, we will explore several of the major poetic forms in anglophone poetry: the sonnet, villanelle, sestina, pantoum, ghazal, haiku, haibun, and duplex. In the final classes, accompanied by creative examples in contemporary poetry, we will even experiment with the invention of our own poetic forms. Form is a set of tools and rules— helpful to have in your back pocket, so that it becomes truly a choice when or whether to use them. This course takes inspiration from the world of games, where we invent the rules in order to play.
About the Instructor:
Anna Genevieve Winham is an award-winning writer who serves as the Major Gifts Officer for Graywolf Press. She has taught both virtual and in-person form poetry classes for PSNY, Passengers Journal, and Tri-Mic, and she co-facilitated a form poetry workshop series with Haleh Liza Gafori. Anna was also the Editor-in-Chief for Passengers Journal and the Journal Coordinator for Oxford Public Philosophy, and she won Ninth Letter's 2020 literary award in Literary Nonfiction for a "notable" essay in Best American Essays 2021. Anna writes and performs with PSNY, moonlighting as Velvet Envy in The Poetry Brothel. You can find her poetry in New York Quarterly, Wild Roof Journal, High Shelf Press, Cathexis Northwest Press, and others. Her prose appears or is forthcoming in We'll Have to Pass, Brooklyn Magazine, The Oxford Review of Books, Grist Journal, Meetinghouse Magazine online, and others. While attending Dartmouth College (which was the pits), she won the Stanley Prize for experimental essay and the Kaminsky Family Fund Award.
Join The Poetry Society of New York for a limited-capacity, six-week poetry workshop.
When: September 24 – October 29, 2025 (Wednedsays, 6:30–8:30 PM EST)
Duration: 6 Weeks
Format: Virtual, via Zoom
Workshop Overview:
Many poets writing today grew into the genre during a time of what I affectionately call "free verse hegemony." While free verse still dominates many poetry publications and performances, a small but steady rise in the popularity of form poetry is now emerging. Think Jericho Brown's new form, the duplex. Think Terrance Hayes's book of sonnets, American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin. Think Diane Seuss's book of nontraditional sonnets, frank: sonnets. Where does this turn in the tide leave those of us who grew up on the line broken whenever and wherever we wanted?
For the form-curious or form-loving, form-hating or form-ignorant, this intensive will introduce and explain what form is as well as what tools can be employed to create form. Over the course of the 6 weeks, we will explore several of the major poetic forms in anglophone poetry: the sonnet, villanelle, sestina, pantoum, ghazal, haiku, haibun, and duplex. In the final classes, accompanied by creative examples in contemporary poetry, we will even experiment with the invention of our own poetic forms. Form is a set of tools and rules— helpful to have in your back pocket, so that it becomes truly a choice when or whether to use them. This course takes inspiration from the world of games, where we invent the rules in order to play.
About the Instructor:
Anna Genevieve Winham is an award-winning writer who serves as the Major Gifts Officer for Graywolf Press. She has taught both virtual and in-person form poetry classes for PSNY, Passengers Journal, and Tri-Mic, and she co-facilitated a form poetry workshop series with Haleh Liza Gafori. Anna was also the Editor-in-Chief for Passengers Journal and the Journal Coordinator for Oxford Public Philosophy, and she won Ninth Letter's 2020 literary award in Literary Nonfiction for a "notable" essay in Best American Essays 2021. Anna writes and performs with PSNY, moonlighting as Velvet Envy in The Poetry Brothel. You can find her poetry in New York Quarterly, Wild Roof Journal, High Shelf Press, Cathexis Northwest Press, and others. Her prose appears or is forthcoming in We'll Have to Pass, Brooklyn Magazine, The Oxford Review of Books, Grist Journal, Meetinghouse Magazine online, and others. While attending Dartmouth College (which was the pits), she won the Stanley Prize for experimental essay and the Kaminsky Family Fund Award.