Led by Shannon K. Winston, 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.

Poetic closure can be challenging. This course introduces four strategies (one per week) to make ending a poem less daunting.

Poetic closure is elusive. A poem’s final lines can haunt us, take our breath away, or reshape our understanding of the entire piece. Yet, how do we know when a poem's ending feels "right?"

Over the course of four weeks, this class will explore different types of poetic closure. We will learn how to look for clues within a poem that might gesture to different possible endings. This course aims to provide participants with various tactics for approaching closure.

In addition to our discussion, participants will generate four new poems that experiment with different types of closure. These poems will be workshopped by other participants and receive feedback from the instructor.

We will read brief excerpts from craft essays on poetic closure, including by Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Marianne Boruch, and Alina Stefanescu. We will seek inspiration by poets such as Ada Lìmon, Ross Gay, Blas Falconer, Kay Ryan, and James Wright.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Learn different tactics for ending a poem.
• Analyze the relationship between a poem's title, its central concern, and its ending.
• Draft four new poems that experiment with different types of closure.

*All course readings can be found online and listed in the course outline/syllabus.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1: Closure--Let's Circle Back to the Beginning!

Week 2: Let's End on an Image

Week 3: Oh Wait: The Last Line Made Me Revisit the Entire Poem

Week 4: Closure is Never Really Closure: The Anti-Closure Move

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class is entirely asynchronous which means 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 Shannon 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 get the work done as you see fit week-to-week, so it 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. Shannon 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.