Hatch some new poems in 2021! “Practicing Poetry” begins January 13, 2021 and runs for six online sessions through March 24th. We will write together on Wednesday nights 5:00-6:30 pm eastern. Students register for these Winter 2021 weekly sessions here.

This program is hosted by The Woodlawn Library and sponsored by Delaware Libraries. For teens and adults, all levels and suitable for beginners. 

We will write a lot and read a lot, poems by Monica Sok, Natalie Diaz, Victoria Chang and Craig Santos Perez. Also poets Jericho Brown, Justin Phillip Reed*, Carl Phillips, Franny Choi and more.

Lesson and prompts will focus on themes of climate crisis, animal minds, what’s in a word, and locating loss. We will practice traditional forms like sonnet, tanka and love lyrics. But also newly-forged poetic forms such as Brown’s duplex, and Chang’s appropriation of the newspaper obit to reject the traditional elegy. Register weekly here: https://delawarelibraries.libcal.com/event/7342894

Practicing Poetry Winter 2021 class dates are January 13 and 27; February 10 and 24; March 10 and 24.

American Toads

                 *EXIT HEX

BY JUSTIN PHILLIP REED

for Rogan Hardy

Twice I’ve turned my head to see a cop

inside me find himself in love. His thumb

heavy in the novel of my body kept my spine

from snapping shut. . .

(published at Adroit Journal)