Starts Saturday, November 1st, 2025

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Instructor Renee Emerson is the author of the poetry collections Keeping Me Still, Threshing Floor, and Church Ladies. She is also the author of the chapbook The Commonplace Misfortunes of Everyday Plants and the middle-grade novel Why Silas Miller Must Learn to Ride a Bike. She holds an MFA in poetry from Boston University, where she was also awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and children.

Read an interview with Renee on Learning from Louise Glück.

This generative workshop will examine the work of Louise Glück, incorporating writing prompts based on her poetry and advice from her essays on craft. Open to all levels, and students will generate eight new poems in this class.

Each week, we will study one of Louise Glück's books, learning from the writing techniques she employs and incorporating them into our own poems in a weekly prompt.

In the workshop, we will read Glück's poetry and craft essays as well as essays written on Glück's work. We will offer respectful and kind critique of each others work, with goal of uplifting and supporting each other as writers.

Louise Glück was Poet Laureate, with an unmistakable dry, ironic voice that will not soon be forgotten, but she was also, for many years, a poetry teacher. Even after she has passed on, we can learn from the valuable advice and well-crafted poetry she has left behind.

CLASS FEEDBACK

Renee will provide a typed critique of four poems per student in the course of the class. Renee typically critiques line-by-line and includes a page of cumulative thoughts on the poem, advice on revision, and suggested magazines that may be interested in the poem.

READING MATERIALS

We will be working from Poems 1962-2012 by Louise Glück, her most complete anthology. However, in the interest of accessibility, Renee will also provide links to all required poems to be read for this class.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week One: Meeting Louise Glück

Week Two: The First Four Books of Poems

Week Three: Behind Glück's Masks: Her Use of Persona / Workshop 

Week Four: Glück's Essays on Writing / Workshop

Week Five: Glück's Later Work / Workshop 

Week Six: Final Workshop / Publishing / Wrapping Up Thoughts on Glück

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Eight new poems
• Four workshopped poems
• A deeper understanding of Louise Glück's writing

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class is asynchronous, meaning you complete the weekly assignments on your own schedule. There are no set meeting times in order to allow for greater participation; your cohort will consist of writers from across different time zones, which allows for a wonderful diversity of voices.

Along with your weekly deadlines, there is plenty of interaction with Renee and your peers within Wet Ink, our dedicated online classroom. Craft materials, lectures, reading assignments, and writing prompts are all available through the online classroom. Students also post work and provide and receive feedback within the online classroom environment.

You can finish the work as you see fit week-to-week, which is perfect for any schedule. There are discussion questions each week inspired by the assigned readings and topics in the lecture notes. Students are encouraged to take these wherever is most compelling and/or useful for them. Renee engages with these discussions throughout the week, and you will receive feedback from all assigned writing activities.

HOW DOES WET INK WORK?

Wet Ink was built and designed specifically for online writing classes. Wet Ink is private, easy to use, and very interactive. You can learn more about the Wet Ink platform by Watching a Class Demo.

• Instructor: Renee Emerson
• Starts Saturday, November 1st, 2025
  
• The course is fully online, allowing students to work according to their own schedule within weekly deadlines. Ahead of the class start date, the instructor will send you a link to our online classroom, provided via Wet Ink.
• Tuition is $395 USD.