Tuesdays, November 21-January 2, 7:00-9:00 pm EST/ 6:00-8:00 pm CST

*no class on Tuesday, December 26

Online, 10 Students Max

Sliding Scale: $275-$375

*financial aid options available, please write the Co-Lab for more details

If you’ve ever felt like poetry is too hard for you—that it’s overcomplicated, inaccessible, or impossible to understand—then this class is for you. Sure, poetry can be mysterious, but it’s much friendlier than you think. After all, it’s one of the oldest forms of human expression: before writing itself emerged, we told each other stories around the fire; we sang to each other; we recited epics. Today, poetry is just as alive as it ever has been.

This 6-session workshop will cover the basics of poetry and craft: how lines work in poems, how to think about image and metaphor, how to read and write poems that avoid vagueness and abstractions, and more. Students will have the opportunity to write their own poetry for pleasure, and read and discuss work by a diverse range of contemporary poets. In the last 3 weeks of the course, students will take turns participating in instructor-led workshops of a poem they’ve written during the class. Students will also have the opportunity for an optional one-on-one video call with the instructor.

About the Instructor

Natasha Oladokun is a Black, queer poet and essayist from Virginia. She earned a BA in English from the University of Virginia, and an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University. She holds fellowships from Cave Canem, The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Jackson Center for Creative Writing, Twelve Literary Arts, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the inaugural First Wave Poetry fellow. Her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, Image, Harvard Review Online, Kenyon Review Online, Harper’s Bazaar, Catapult, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and is working on her first collection of poems.

Student Testimonials

“In addition to being excellent at her craft, Natasha Oladokun is an exceptional teacher. She modeled incredibly compassionate and constructive feedback that never held back in its striving for excellence.”

"Natasha facilitated conversation and workshops with care and expertise, and was very generous with her time and knowledge."

"[T]hat’s what made the workshop structure so different from others Natasha has taught. Whereas normally workshop feedback tends to focus too heavily on the minutiae of the poem’s structure — “Why did you break the line here?” — Natasha’s First Wave workshop cut straight to the meat of the process: “Looking at what the poem is saying as opposed to how it is behaving,” and saving the minutiae for the final review process."

Fear Not! A Beginner's Poetry Workshop, 6 sessions with Natasha Oladokun