Study and analyze great poets and poems to discover new ways to write great poems.

This is a reader’s workshop, focusing on close readings of poems by two great American poets, Stanley Plumly and Natasha Trethewey, in order more deeply to enjoy their poems and to derive specific strategies and prompts for our own work. This focused two-hour gathering will be in two parts, with David Baker examining Plumly’s work and Christopher Kondrich plumbing Trethewey’s. We’ll dive-deep into specific poems, identify each poet’s signature tactics, and talk about the class’s own practices. We hope to have some time for in-class writing, and we hope you take away specific, engaging new methods for your next poems. There’s no prior preparation necessary, though familiarity with the two poets would be useful; we’ll have handouts for class and if you have Plumly’s Collected Poems and Trethewey’s Native Guard, it would be helpful to bring with you.

In-person class: This workshop will take place at The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh St, Bethesda MD.

In this workshop you’ll learn how to:

• Read, analyze, and enjoy specific poems from two master poets
• Identify distinct strategies of poetic composition
• Discover various techniques from form to voice, syntax to story, personal narrative to social relevance
• Derive writing opportunities and prompts for your future poetry

Time Requirements

• This is a one-day two-hour experience. To prepare, read or reread poems by Stanley Plumly and Natasha Trethewey; and be able to describe your own compositional methods and aspirations for poetry.

Materials

• Collected Poems of Stanley Plumly (W. W. Norton, 2025)
• Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
  • If you don’t have either or both of these books, we will also have a handout of the poems we’ll discuss.

Who should take this workshop?

• This workshop-class will be useful both for beginning and experienced poets as they strive toward new methods, forms, and inspiration for their work to come.

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.