Class Description

In a world unraveling, how do we stay responsive—and poetic? This generative, discussion-based poetry workshop explores the uncanny as a way into creative writing. Using conspiracy theories, logical fallacies, UFO sightings, and witness accounts as prompts, we’ll write into mystery, tension, and unexplainable truths. We’ll engage with concepts like negative capability, juxtaposition, and poetic form as tools for expressing emotional complexity. Students will generate new work each week and have the opportunity to workshop 1–2 pieces. Expect light reading in class (no homework) and a focus on rule-breaking, responsiveness, and the strange beauty of what can’t be explained. ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTORS: A poet, editor, and occasional critic, MICHAEL MERCURIO lives and writes in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. His poems, interviews, and reviews have been published or are forthcoming in Palette Poetry, Thrush, The Common, Cream City Review, Sierra, and elsewhere. Michael founded and curates What The Universe Is: A (Virtual) Reading Series, where established and emerging poets read together monthly on Zoom. You can learn more at www.poetmercurio.com. Poet and translator JULY WESTHALE was born in the American Southwest. Their books include moon moon, Trailer Trash, Unmade Hearts, and Via Negativa, which Publishers Weekly called "stunning" in a starred review. Their translation of the Chilean poet Rolando Cardenas' collected works was selected for the 2026 Unsung Masters Series (forthcoming from Pleiades Press). They have work in McSweeney’s, DIAGRAM, The National Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, CALYX, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Huffington Post, among others. July is represented by Carolyn Forde at Transatlantic and lives in Tucson, where they are adapting their novel to film.