Poetry Forge offers poetry workshops, retreats, and creative programming for poets—and secret poets—seeking serious engagement with the art of writing.
Founded in 2013 by Holly Wren Spaulding, our online and in-person workshops, practice periods, creative mentorship, and manuscript incubator, A Body of Work, support ongoing creative practice within a warm, inclusive community.
All are welcome.
Explore
This is imagination school
Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.
—Audre Lorde
"It is no small thing to create and hold welcoming, creative, beautiful, soft space in this world, and Holly is doing it. And she is teaching by example, which is of course the best way to teach."
—Kim F., Poetry Forge Student since 2020
Credo
Our birthright is imagination.
We don’t forget.
We give voice and shape to what must be said, heard, shared, and understood.
We pay attention.
We practice softly, softly.
We are tougher than you’d think.
We save ourselves—we don’t wait.
We invite our friends.
We materialize our inner lives.
We make spaces where poetry lives on and beyond the page.
With our words we create realities.
Poetry is our way of being in the world.
Workshops
& Classes
Now enrolling
today we are possible.
—Lucille Clifton
Join Us
Poetry Forge offers year-round programming for emerging writers from across North America, Europe and beyond. We also offer free workshops at the end of the year and once each spring. Subscribe to the mailing list to receive an occasional letter, Ars Poetica, containing resources and reflections of interest to poets and secret poets, news about upcoming offerings, and musings about life on the southern coast of Maine.
