Registration is rolling until September 20 at 11:59PM EST. No application is required (except for financial aid— Applications for financial aid are due September 16 at 5PM EST).

$400 w/financial aid available to residents of Greater Philadelphia (Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties)

8 week class: Wednesdays 6-8PM EST, 9/27, 10/4, 10/11, 10/18, 10/25, 11/1, 11/8, 11/15 (optional makeup date 11/22)

In this course students will learn to "read like a writer," while grappling with the work of accomplished poets. Through diverse readings, students will examine craft strategies at work in both formal and free verse poems.. Students will discuss strategies for conveying the literal meaning of a poem (e.g., through sensory description and clear, compelling language) and the concealed meaning of a text (e.g., through metaphor, imagery, meter, irony, and shifts in diction and syntax). Students will also explore the space of mystery in the poetic realm. By the end of the course, students will have generated new material, shaped and revised draft poems, and significantly grown as writers by experimenting with various aspects of craft.

Sham-e-Ali Nayeem is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, musician and recovering social justice lawyer with Hyderabadi Muslim roots. She is the author of the poetry collection, City of Pearls (Upset Press, 2019), and has released two musical albums; City of Pearls (2019) and Moti Ka Sheher (2023) featuring self composed musical interpretations from her book. Her work explores grief and loss, ancestral transmissions, international solidarities and space to imagine. Sham-e-Ali is the recipient of the 2022 Leeway Transformation Award, the 2016 Loft Literary Center Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship, and the 1997 echoing green fellowship.