Let’s write about sex, baby!

For many poets, writing poems about sex can feel intimidating and difficult. Yet for as long as there’s been poetry, there have been poems that celebrate the joys, mysteries, and chaos of erotic connection. This workshop offers an opportunity for poets to write their own poems with Eros at the center, as well as read and study poems featuring a wide range of poets of color, and queer and trans poets. In this workshop we’ll ask ourselves questions like: How can poems about sex gesture toward even larger considerations than sex itself? What might we learn from poetic traditions that blend erotic poetry and spiritual poetry? How does Eros locate the body both within itself, while transcending the self? By the end of this workshop, students can expect to leave with new poems and new insights into their own poetic process. Students should plan to come to the first workshop with a favorite poem by another poet, to share with the group.

Learn at your own pace: This workshop will take place over Wet Ink, which is an asynchronous creative writing platform. The instructor will post a lesson and assignment at the beginning of each week, and participants can log in and read the lessons/post assignments/comment on other classmates’ work at their convenience. Shortly before the start date, participants will receive an invite from Wet Ink to create their login info and access the class. Please check your spam if you don’t see it.

In this workshop you’ll learn:

• Various poetic approaches to writing toward the erotic
• How tools of craft and form enrich our understanding of poems
• Methods for revising new drafts that focus on possibility rather than self-criticism

Time requirements

• Students should expect to spend an hour a week on reading, and however much time they need to write their own poems (or revise old poems) for workshop.

Materials

• All reading materials will be provided.

Who should take this workshop?

• This workshop is designed for writers who are interested in studying—and writing—poems that engage with eros, sexuality, and the body in thoughtful and surprising ways. Students do not have to have taken a poetry workshop before, but some comfort level with writing and exchanging work is encouraged.

If you need an accommodation for this workshop, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.