“a voice to speak / in a dark room”: Professionalization for Poets

Description

“a voice to speak / in a dark room”: Professionalization for Poets

$300

6 Wednesdays, 4/1/2026-5/18/2026 | 7:00-9:00pm ET | Virtual

Borrowing its title from Audre Lorde’s poem “A Lover’s Song,” this six-week course is for poets navigating the intersection of their passion for poetry and their professionalization as “emerging poets” in the publishing industry. An interactive space, the course will include light lectures, group discussions, guest visits, and generative prompts. Poets will come away from this cohort with a professional portfolio prepared for pitching projects and pieces to journals, artist fellowships, and literary agents. 

Week 1: Refreshing Our Bios and Cover Letters

Week 2: Websites

Week 3: Poetry & the Academy

Week 4: Artist Statements for Workshops, Fellowships, and Residencies

Week 5: Querying Agents

Week 6: Virtual Spaces

Class Cap: 12 students

About the Instructor:

m. mick powell is a queer Black Cape Verdean femme, a poet, an artist, an Aries, and author of the chapbooks threesome in the last Toyota Celica and chronicle the body. Their poems have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and a Pushcart Prize, and appear in RHINO, Muzzle, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and elsewhere. mick is a professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Connecticut and an adjunct in Bay Path University’s MFA in creative nonfiction writing program. A former Tin House Resident, she enjoys chasing waterfalls and being in love.