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The Art of Poetic Closure: an Interview with Shannon K. Winston
by Writing Workshops Staff
5 hours ago
The poet Shannon K. Winston has a way of describing the end of a poem that feels as if she’s telling the most wistful of bedtime stories, where the final lines both lull us into stillness and quietly beg for another turn of the page. She’s spent years refining the delicate art of poetic closure, grappling with the question of how a handful of words can leave a reader haunted, enthralled, or fundamentally changed. This restless curiosity has led her through an MFA at the esteemed Warren Wilson Program for Writers, a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Michigan, and teaching stints at the University of Michigan, Princeton, and Indiana University.
Now, Winston is channeling these insights into a new four-week poetry intensive for WritingWorkshops.com: How Does It End? The Art of Poetic Closure.
Over the course of a month, she’ll invite writers to interrogate endings in all their forms: endings that circle us back to the opening line; endings that imprint an indelible image in our minds; endings that snap our understanding of the poem into a new dimension; and even “anti-endings,” those wondrous moments that defy neat resolution.
Participants will leave with four fresh poems, each an experiment in closure’s infinite possibilities. Through craft essays by luminaries like Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Marianne Boruch, and Alina Stefanescu, and poets such as Ada Limón and Ross Gay, students will find new approaches to the most elusive part of poetry: knowing when (or if) a poem truly ends.
Before Winston leads the first discussion on that perfect last line, we took a moment to sit down with her and explore how she stumbled upon this subversive fascination with poetic finality, what she hopes her students will discover in the process, and why, sometimes, you have to let your poem wander into the unexpected in order to find its quietest, truest conclusion.
Poetic closure is often described as elusive or mysterious. What first inspired you to dig deeper into this particular aspect of craft, and why do you think writers can struggle so much to find the “right” ending?
Many beautiful but sometimes contradictory metaphors evoke poetic closure: a slamming door, an open window, a return to the beginning, a quiet exit. Yet, there’s no consensus about what closure is, what it should try to do, and how to accomplish it. This lack of consensus is a good thing because it gives the poet freedom. And yet, because there are different approaches and views on poetic closure, it’s an elusive and mysterious thing. Moreover, there’s a lot of pressure to find a strong ending because it’s the last impression one leaves with the reader.
For these reasons, I struggled with poetic closure as an MFA student, often overwriting or underwriting my endings—either forcing a conclusion too soon or trailing off uncertainly. I dedicated my MFA essay to the topic and, several years later, I co-edited a special issue of Mentor and Muse on poetic closure. Through this work, I’ve learned about different types of closure—some of which we will study in my class—that have enriched and diversified the way I thought about endings. More importantly, I learned to look within a poem—at its structure, dominant imagery, tone, etc.—to explore possible endings. A poem gives us hints about how it might end, but intuition plays a role too! In this workshop, we’ll explore various types of closure and how intuition and close reading of our own poems can guide us toward strong endings.
Your workshop touches on four different strategies for closure. Could you talk about one of these strategies that feels especially resonant to you, either in your poems or in the work you admire?
I've love poems that follow circular logic—beginning with a conceit, word, or sound, wandering, then returning to the original conceit in the final lines. Angie Estes’s “I Want to Talk About You” does this so beautifully. Her poem, as the title suggests, meanders like casual speech or a bird in flight—the poem’s subject. The last line circles back to the place, Otmoor, which is first named in the opening line. Yet the poem wanders so far that, by the poem’s end, the reader's understanding of that initial place point feels richer and more expansive. Using a circular logic in one’s poetic closure often involves a re-envisioning of the poem’s opening via repetition and variation. I’ve experimented a lot with this type of closure, which you can see in my poem “Mustard Seed” and “Panic Attack in Front of a Mirror: A Fugue.”
You mention that each participant will generate four new poems, each experimenting with a different type of ending. How do you see experimentation and play shaping a poet’s growth, especially when it comes to final lines?
Experimentation and play have been (and continue to be!) crucial to a poet’s growth. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut or rely on what feels comfortable, but doing so leaves little room for evolution. Trying new approaches is especially important when it comes to poetic closure. If a poet becomes too attached to a particular kind of ending, how can they be sure it’s truly the strongest one? Experimentation requires letting go and, if possible, seeing things in a new light. The last lines of a poem should do the same, which is why I believe embracing a sense of openness in the process is essential.
The title, the poem’s central concern, and the ending all work in concert. Can you share a moment in your writing or teaching when you realized how powerfully these elements interlock and how that realization changed your approach?
Teaching Pablo Neruda’s odes and reading Kay Ryan’s work helped me see how a poem’s title, structure, and ending work “in concert,” as you put it. Their poems, which center on objects and use those objects as titles—such as Neruda’s “Ode to My Socks” and Ryan’s “Linens”—encouraged me (and my students!) to closely examine how an object moves through the poem and how the final lines expand or complicate its meaning. Ryan’s concise, short lines also made me more attuned to how a poem’s ending depends on its overall structure.
As a visual learner, I found it helpful when someone compared a poem’s title to a hanger, with the poem hanging from it. The title, poem, and ending should align, much like clothing hanging from a hanger. This doesn’t mean an ending can’t subvert (or wrinkle!) the poem, but rather that the ending should, in some way, connect back to the title.
One of the most haunting qualities of a strong ending is that it can make readers revisit the entire poem. What’s an example from classic or contemporary poetry that you find masterful at reframing everything in just a few lines?
James Wright’s “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” knocks my socks off every time I read it. The poem initially seems lovely and lulling; and yet that ending— “I have wasted my life”—is so direct and bleak. It completely pulls the rug out from under you and reframes the entire poem. A lot of Richard Brautigan poems do this, too (see this one, for example).
In Week 4, you explore the idea that closure might not be closure at all, a sort of anti-closure. How do you see this concept pushing poets to challenge traditional expectations and keep readers engaged?
I love contrapuntals (two columns or more that can be read down and across) because the resist singular interpretations and singular endings. This form pushes poets to think about closure as multiplicity and ambiguity in interesting ways. Contrapuntals require an active, highly engaged reading (insofar as the reader must read the same text in many ways). There’s also been a lot of interesting work on the ways elegies resist closure because grief is complex, unresolved, and ongoing. The anti-closure is part of the way the reader can identify with a poem insofar as it tries to capture the lack of resolution in grief.
You’ve taught at the University of Michigan, Princeton, and Indiana University. Now, you’re leading this workshop on poetic closure. How does your broader experience as an educator inform how you guide writers through something as nuanced and personal as endings?
My teaching has made me even more aware of the importance of audience. When I worked at Princeton, our Program’s motto was (and still is!): every writer needs a reader. Now, at Indiana University, I teach the importance of writing audience-centered prose. I agree that poetic closure is nuanced and personal, but it should also be an act of communication—something the reader can understand. A strong ending is not just one that resonates for the poet: it should be something the reader also feels.
Many of my courses are workshop-based and focus on peer feedback. In nearly two decades of teaching, I’ve developed a question- and curiosity-based approach to feedback. I find that open-ended, curiosity-driven questions help writers clarify their own work. Rather than simply stating that something isn’t working—which can shut down both conversation and the poem—it’s often more effective to pose questions that open new avenues for exploration and revision. This is especially important in the personal choice of poetic closure, where the right question can help a writer discover the most fitting ending.
Lastly, I’ve found fascinating overlaps between personal, poetic endings and academic writing genres like the essay. As an instructor of expository writing, I encourage students to move beyond the five-paragraph essay’s habit of summarizing the main argument or using phrases like “To conclude.” Instead, I urge them to explore a counterargument, extend their thesis, or highlight an underexplored theme. Why tell the reader what they already know? The same holds true for poetry—poetic endings, at their best, should offer something new, in whatever form that takes.
Finally, your forthcoming collection, The Worry Dolls, is sure to offer its own approaches to closure. Could you give us a small glimpse into how your current writing practice and new book reflect the insights you’ll share in this course?
In The Worry Dolls, I was particularly interested in how a poem’s structure can capture the cyclical nature of worry. I experimented with various craft elements, especially repetition and open-endedness in poetic closure. I devised a series of writing prompts—such as ending a poem one stanza earlier than anticipated, repeating a word from the opening in a different context, and other exercises. We’ll be working with similar prompts in my course!
Learn more and join us for How Does It End? The Art of Poetic Closure.
Shannon K. Winston is the author of The Worry Dolls (Glass Lyre Press, forthcoming) and The Girl Who Talked to Paintings (Glass Lyre Press, 2021). Her poems have appeared in Bracken, Cider Press Review, Los Angeles Review, RHINO Poetry, SWWIM Every Day, West Trestle Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Michigan. In addition to writing poetry, she’s also a dedicated educator and has taught for numerous institutions, including the University of Michigan, Princeton University, and Indiana University. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana with her partner and dog.
