Spring Virtual Poetry Intensive: Poetry is Sexy

When: May 13 – June 17, 2026 (Wednesdays, 6:30–8:30 PM EST)

Duration: 6 Weeks

Format: Virtual, via Zoom

Workshop Overview:

Let’s face it: poetry is sexy.

This is especially true in our world, where so many people are afraid to simply name what they are feeling. There’s something priceless about just saying it. It’s an authenticity of emotion. It’s what people call rawness. Poetry is both tension and release. Especially for those of us who are marginalized, poetry is both political and personal — personal and political. BIPOC and QTPOC poets are often drawn to traditional western forms and then f-ing with them, making them their own. It’s a reclamation. The “tension and release” lies in naming the root cause of the tension and then allowing the lines to poetically release the tension. Or you can consider the intimacy between poet (and thus speaker) and reader: how as writers, we create an emotional seduction from our title (do not forget this important real estate in the space of your poem!!) into our lines. We can apply these ideas to create more sensual poems — gosh, do I love when seduction happens through humor and wit. But for humor and wit to land, you’ve got to name it.

I love pop culture because it reflects our larger world politically, historically, and socially. I love poetry because it reflects our larger world politically, historically, and socially. I want to continuously embody sexiness in my writing. I want to continuously experiment with the queer fluidity and sexiness of f-ing with traditional poetic forms. In this course, we will do all of the above. We will intensely study a poetic form (sonnet, abecedarian, sestina, etc.) each week through guided demonstrations and readings. As the creator of two contemporary forms, the Triple Sonnet and the Double Abecedarian, I am here to guide you on your own form innovation. Our weekly readings will focus on the works of contemporary (yes, celebrate artists while they are living!) marginalized writers— works by BIPOC, QTPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, women, and writers who identities lie in multiple intersections.

We’ll begin each class with a demonstration, as well as a discussion of the readings. I will also be giving prompt-driven exercises. We’ll then spend the next half workshopping your work. In workshop, I reject the traditional Iowa Writers’ Workshop “cone of silence” model. Who we are as people will always be brought into both the workshop and our writing. Now let’s f with the ineffable of poetry.

About the Instructor:

Dorothy Chan (they/she) is the author of five poetry collections, including Return of the Chinese Femme (Deep Vellum, 2024), a 2025 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry; BABE (Diode Editions, 2021), a 2022 finalist for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize from the New England Poetry Club; Revenge of the Asian Woman (Diode Editions, 2019), a finalist for the 2023 Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and the 2020 Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry; Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold (Spork Press, 2018); and the chapbook, Chinatown Sonnets (New Delta Review, 2017), selected by Douglas Kearney for the 6th Annual New Delta Review Chapbook Contest. They are a two-time Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from The Poetry Foundation and a 2019 recipient for the Philip Freund Prize in Creative Writing from Cornell University. Chan is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Founder of Honey Literary Inc., a 501(c)(3) BIPOC literary arts organization. They were a 2022 recipient of the University of Wisconsin System’s Dr. P.B. Poorman Award for Outstanding Achievement on Behalf of LGBTQ+ People. She has been a two-time editorial Visitor for Sewanee Writers’ Conference and has been a speaker / reader at Cornell University, University of Michigan, Louisiana State University, Arizona State University, and Duke University. Chan’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2025, The American Poetry Review, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Poetry Society of America, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Poetry Foundation, and elsewhere.