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This is imagination school.

Poetry Forge offers workshops and writing opportunities all year round. You can view our calendar of current offerings and subscribe to our newsletter to receive early access and the most updated information. You can also follow us on Instagram @poetryforge where we share some of our favorite poems and inspirations and scenes from the seacoast of Maine. Get in touch anytime if you have questions.

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Oceans Without End

A summer practice period for poets and secret poets offering a slow, sultry approach to writing through the season and a creative project to focus your attention during the lazy, hazy days of June and July. All levels. Enrollment opens in May.

June 3-July 17, 2024

Details here

For a Meadow

For a Meadow: 13 Ways to Seed a Wildland of Poems. Guided by the themes of sowing and cultivation, we will explore the practice of writing as a way of imagining and creating a world of fertility, possibility, and little beauties. Taught asynchronously online by Holly Wren Spaulding. All levels.

May 1-17, 2024

Details here

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Other Doors

Other Doors: X Ways to Revise a Poem provides essential lessons in the art of revision, helps you become more confident in your ability to edit your work, and prepares students to submit their work for publication in literary magazines and journals. This course is a pre-requisite for anyone who would like to take A Body of Work, which is Holly’s annual manuscript incubator. The next session of this course will happen in 2024.

Details here

Infinite Imagination

A process lab for new writing and creativity where we explore the uses and pleasures of prolific iteration while undertaking experiments that involve committing to our obsessions, exploring echoes, and embracing swiftness and looseness. Students will conceive a small project based on their findings in the lab. Online. Space is very limited.

Details Here

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A Secret Life

A Secret Life offers a gentle framework for how to listen, imagine, and steward the creative call of something personally significant: an art project that matters to you. In this special winter workshop series you will be supported in a process of finding freedom, space, and confidence to materialize your secret life and a secret project in any media.

Details Here

A Body of Work

A manuscript incubator where you receive support and mentorship as you develop your first poetry chapbook manuscript. These courses are a good fit for those who have assembled enough poems to begin thinking in terms of a collection. It is recommended that the student participates in Oceans Without End and Other Doors: X Ways to Revise a Poem is a pre-requisite before joining ABOW. Applications open in November for the follow year’s cohort.

Details here

A Home of Heart and Bones

A project layout & design workshop with Kat Farrell-Davis where we will explore how to give your art & poetry a place to live in the world. This workshop is especially ideal for writers and artists who are interested in self-publishing a small project. Many take this workshop after completing Oceans Without End or Other Doors: X Ways to Revise a Poem.

Details here

Registration Opens Around the New Year

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Poetry As—

February 13-November 12, 2024

A workshop series offering shared space for new writing, vital conversations, encounters with guest artists and authors, and guided writing experiences with your host, Holly Wren Spaulding.

Poetry as Astonishment, Poetry as Listening, Poetry as Beauty, Poetry as Grief Ritual, Poetry as Unknowing, Poetry as Pathfinding, Poetry as Refuge, and Poetry and the Sacred are our themes in 2024.

Details here

The Casual Union of Working Poets

February 2-December 19, 2024

An affinity group, meeting point, and alumni club for Poetry Forge writers where we write together, revise our work, submit it for publication, and explore what's possible in a supportive community of committed practitioners.

Details here

Author Holly Wren Spaulding appeared as part of the Coffee With the Author series at the Glen Arbor Art Center in July 2023.

Creative Advising & Manuscript Feedback

Holly takes on a limited number of private clients each season for creative advising and feedback on work in progress. At present, these sessions are only available to members of the Casual Union of Working Poets and students enrolled in A Body of Work.

Reach out if you have questions or wish to book time together via phone or Zoom.