Workshops
Gain momentum and confidence! Generate, edit, and organize your chapbook.
There are no available registration dates at this time.
Over a period of 5 months, this intensive will focus on generating, editing, and organizing a chapbook of 12-15 poems. At the start of the course, we will convene as a group remotely, you will workshop a batch of your current poems and write new ones. We’ll discuss each poet’s overarching concerns and themes, and learn strategies for putting together a chapbook.
Following the initial workshop, you’ll generate more new poems and share them bi-monthly for online critique by Richard and your cohort over the course of the next 5 months, assembling a chapbook from this work. The course will culminate with a weekend workshop via Zoom online conference on the first full weekend of November (7 or 8) to look at each other’s chapbooks in their final stages of completion to submit for publication.
During the first week, generally, we’ll spend 1.5 hours in the morning on interactive lectures/craft topic conversations; then a 90-minute lunch break, followed by workshop sessions in the afternoon for about 2 hours. Students will need to email their poems to other participants and faculty for critique and review.
Registration note: This intensive is for poets who have already learned the fundamentals and want to refine and ready their poetry for a chapbook submission.
Once you have submitted your registration, please submit a letter explaining your intent, your background in writing and any publication history, along with up to six poems (no more than ten pages) to [email protected]. Your admittance to the Intensive cannot be confirmed until this material has been received and reviewed. You will receive notice of your acceptance within two weeks of your submission. Sign up early, the course will be limited to no more than 12 students.
Testimonials from previous participants:
“The Maine Media Poetry Intensive provided valuable in-class instruction and on-going classmate feedback. Both gave me the momentum and confidence to submit my manuscript for a chapbook contest which I won. Without them, I know I would not have attempted it.”
~Bonnie Larson Staiger, author of Destiny Manifested winner of the “Poetry of the Plains and Prairies Award” from NDSU Press.
“The poetry-intensive workshop led by poet Richard Blanco was immensely valuable and substantially advanced my writing skills. Through structured classroom lessons and assignments, I stretched my poetic reach…. In addition to being an extraordinary poet, Richard Blanco is a skilled and engaging teacher, and highly personable….It was my goal going into this workshop to complete a publication-ready poetry chapbook – and I have. My collection of new poems, six of which were written during the workshop, has been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press – my first poetry book! I truly feel that Richard Blanco and the Maine Media poetry-intensive workshop made this achievement possible.”
~Catherine Marenghi, poet and memoirist living in Mexico. A Massachusetts native, she is the author of “Glad Farm: A Memoir” and the forthcoming poetry collection “Breaking Bread.” Her poetry has also won numerous awards and has been published in literary journals in the U.S. and Mexico.
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Instructor: Richard Blanco
Selected by President Obama as the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco is the first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami, the negotiation of cultural identity characterizes his four collections of poetry: How To Love a Country, City of a Hundred Fires, which received the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press; Directions to The Beach of the Dead, recipient of the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center; and Looking for The Gulf Motel, recipient of the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award. He has also authored the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood, winner of a Lambda Literary Award. His inaugural poem “One Today” was published as a children’s book, in collaboration with renowned illustrator Dav Pilkey. Boundaries, a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler, challenges the physical and psychological dividing lines that shadow the United States. And his latest book of poems, How to Love a Country, both interrogates the American narrative, past and present, and celebrates the still unkept promise of its ideals. Blanco has written occasional poems for the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, Freedom to Marry, the Tech Awards of Silicon Valley, and the Boston Strong benefit concert following the Boston Marathon bombings. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary doctorates. He has taught at Georgetown University, American University, and Wesleyan University. He serves as the first Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets.
