Summer Virtual Poetry Intensive: Love & Grief: Writing Love Poems & Elegies

When: June 24 – July 29, 2026 (Wednesdays, 6:30–8:30 PM EST)

Duration: 6 Weeks

Format: Virtual, via Zoom

Workshop Overview:

How do we write about the other? Perhaps they are the ones we love, or perhaps they are ones who just linger in our imagination. At times, it might feel difficult to find a balance between respecting boundaries of the other, while allowing the self to access the truth and depth of our own experience. In this class, we'll spend time with a diverse range of formal and free verse love poems and elegies,two modes that focus on portraying the relationship between self and other.Through close reading and generative writing exercises, we'll explore how these relationships, rendered in language, can mirror back aspects of the poet and speaker. Through revision exercises and workshop discussions, we'll explore the many possibilities our early drafts open up, while discussing how to generate a body of work (from a packet of poems to a manuscript) that goes beyond this class.

About the Instructor:

Megan Pinto is the author of Saints of Little Faith, her debut collection, just out from Four Way Books. Her poems can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, Lit Hub and elsewhere. She has won the Anne Halley Prize from the Massachusetts Review and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers, as well as scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference and Storyknife. Megan lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College.

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