PSNY LGBTQIA+ Free Verse Workshop: Exploring Form Through Queerness

A free generative virtual workshop for LGBTQIA+ Creatives with poet Saúl Hernández!

Ocean Vuong said, "Being queer saved my life. Often we see queerness as deprivation. But when I look at my life, I saw that queerness demanded an alternative innovation from me. I had to make alternative routes; it made me curious; it made me ask, "Is this enough for me?" In this session we will discuss how our own queerness has the power to shape and create forms in our poems.

About the instructor: Saúl Hernández is a queer writer who was raised by former undocumented parents. Saúl is a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. His debut poetry collection, How to Kill a Goat & Other Monsters, is a Texas’ League of Writers Discovery Prize Winner, a Lambda Literary Finalist for Gay Poetry, was Longlisted for a 2025 PEN Open Book Award, and is an Institute of Letters’ honor-winner for First Book of Poetry. He's the winner of both the 2022 Pleiades Prufer Poetry Prize judged by Joy Priest & the 2021 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize judged by Victoria Chang. Saúl’s poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize & Best of The Net. His work is featured in American Poetry Review, Poetry Daily, The Slowdown, Literary Hub, Columbia Journal, Pleiades, Split This Rock & elsewhere. He's a Macondista, a 2021 Tin House Alum, & a 2024 Lambda Literary Fellow.

PSNY's Free Verse Workshops are identity-centered, free virtual spaces designed to uplift marginalized creatives. To create a system of equity within our community, participants of all Free Verse Workshops receive a 50% discount code, redeemable on any of our Weekly Virtual Workshops, each Thursday from 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM EST. For more on the program, feel free to visit https://poetrysocietyny.org/free-verse.

If you do not identify as LGBTQIA+, we warmly invite you to explore other PSNY events.