Ever written something on the page and wondered if it's poetry? What makes a poem a poem?

This is a beginner-friendly, four-week, generative writing workshop for someone who has never dabbled in poetry; wants to learn more about craft and form; and seeks a structure for the chaos of one's own mind. Each week, we will focus on a specific form of poetry: sonnet, ghazal, duplex, and pantoum. We will learn the elements of form; read poets who have used form successfully to achieve the purpose of their work; then purposefully strayed away from form and its limitations. Students can expect to read and write weekly. Our reading materials will consist of craft essays and poems. Our in-class sessions will be prompt-based and students can expect to leave with a packet of poems consisting of at least one sonnet, one ghazal, one duplex, and one pantoum.

About the Instructor

Javeria Hasnain is a poet, translator, and educator from Karachi, and the author of SIN (Chestnut Review, 2024). She received her MFA in Poetry from The New School as a Fulbright scholar. She has previously taught at The New School, Writopia Lab Inc., and Brooklyn Poets, and is currently teaching at Habib University. Her poems have been widely published and anthologized, including in Poet Lore, Pleiades, The Margins, Foglifter, and Rattle, among more.

A Method to the Madness: Messing in Forms; a 4 session poetry generator with Javeria Hasnain