This is an online poetry workshop on writing about grief–that is only for those still practicing Covid-Caution due to their own medically vulnerability, to protect vulnerable love ones and/or their community (or any other reason).

 

This is the first time I will be facilitating a Covid Cautious only workshop. I think it is important that those “still Coviding”  to have a safe space to express challenges that few other people are facing.

 

There is no expectation for participants to write about grief related directly to the pandemic (though certainly that is welcome): topics for poems can be anything grief-related whether the individual loss of a loved one and larger social-political matters.

 

Participants at all levels of creative writing experience are welcome, including novice writers/poets.

 

Participants will share poems with the group in a workshop-discussion that I will facilitate. The maximum number of participants is eight people–this ensures time for everyone to contribute to the discussion and hopefully, unlike a larger group, allows trust to grow.

I will also provide written constructive feedback on your poems

 

The workshop will take place Thursday evenings April 24-May 22, 7-9 PM (ET).

 

The cost is $250.00 CAD.

 

Please contact me at [email protected] to register or with any questions you may have.

Writing Poetry About Grief and Loss

In this five week, online workshop-course, participants will write and workshop poems about grief and loss in a safe and welcoming environment. In addition to facilitating a discussion of your poems, I will provide constructive written feedback on your work. We will also read together (during class time) published poems about grief and discuss the literary techniques and devices employed by the authors. Also, during each class, I will provide a prompt for an in-class writing exercise that will help you generate material and approach your poetry writing in fresh ways.

Writers at any level of experience are welcome to take this course.

Importantly, this course has a limited enrolment of eight people; the small group size allows ample time for a thorough discussion of each other’s work.

Note: For the purposes of this workshop, grief is not necessarily limited to death, but can include any kind of significant loss (for example the end of a romantic partnership or a friendship), and more systemic causes of grief (for example, ecological grief).

About your instructor:
Jacob Scheier is a Governor General’s Award winning poet and has published three full length collections of poetry with ECW Press. His poems have been published widely in magazines and anthologies across North America, as well as nominated for a National Magazine Award and longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. 

Jacob has been facilitating workshops on grief and loss for over a decade, including for the Toronto Metropolitan University’s (formerly Ryerson University) School of Continuing Education, the peer support organization Bereaved Families of Ontario, and with First Nations communities in Ontario and in the Yukon.

Dates: October 29—November 26, 2024
Time:  Tuesday Evenings. 7-9 PM Eastern Standard Time
Location: Online
Cost: $250 CAD

To register or for more information, please contact [email protected]

Crip Poetry Flyer Fall 2023

Wednesdays 6:30-8:30 PM Central Time, Oct.11-Nov. 15, 2023

In this six-week online workshop-course, participants will learn techniques and devices for writing poetry about disability with a disability (social-political) consciousness, also known as “Crip Poetry:” a radical subgenre of poetry focused on self-defining disability against the norms of a society made by and for able-bodied/minded people.

This workshop is open to anyone who identifies as having a disability: this is not limited to physical disability, but includes psychological disability: such as (but not limited to), those who identify as neurodiverse and/or psychiatric survivors.

Writers of all levels of experience are welcome

Register or for more information contact Jacob at [email protected]

Cost: $250—Sliding Scale for those in financial need

Thursdays 6-8 PM Central Time, June 15-July 27, 2023 (off week June 29)

In this six-week online workshop-course, participants will learn techniques and devices for writing poetry about disability with a disability (social-political) consciousness, also known as “Crip Poetry:” a radical subgenre of poetry focused on self-defining disability against the norms of a society made by and for able-bodied/minded people.

This workshop is open to anyone who identifies as having a disability: this is not limited to physical disability, but includes psychological disability: such as (but not limited to), those who identify as neurodiverse and/or psychiatric survivors.

Writers of all levels of experience are welcome

Register or for more information contact Jacob at [email protected]

Cost: $250—Sliding Scale for those in financial need

Thursdays: 6-8 PM Central Time: June 15-July 27 (off-week June 29)

My poems “Elegy Written in a Jewish Graveyard–Ending with a Defection” and “How to Teach Poetry in Back to Normal” will be published this fall in Arc Magazine’s “Disability Desire” themed issue.