Join poet, editor, and teacher Mike Young for an 8 week online poetry workshop sponsored by Barrelhouse magazine. 
 

WHAT IS IT?

An 8 week online workshop that will focus on poetic craft, taking risks, and how to build a poetry collection.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Each week you'll have the opportunity to workshop 1 poem, for a total of 8 poems over the course of the class. For each poem you'll receive detailed feedback from your instructor and your peers. At the end of the course, you'll have the optional opportunity to submit a full manuscript for a detailed instructor critique.

Every other week we'll take a look at specific elements of poetic craft: everything from linebreaks to spondees, odes to bathos. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to tailor discussions to group preferences. Each craft discussion will feature online resources: poems in literary magazines, poems from collections, videos of readings, selections from archives such as PennSound and UbuWeb, etc. There will also be regular writing prompts and exercises. All the supporting materials will be free—participants won't have to buy any books or other materials.

The workshop uses the Moodle learning management system. Participants do not have to be in a certain place at a certain time, but will log into the workshop space throughout the week, whenever convenient for them.

WHEN?

The workshop starts on October 24 and runs for 8 weeks.

HOW MUCH?

The workshop is $175. All proceeds will go to support Barrelhouse, which is a nonprofit literary magazine that seeks to bridge the gap between serious art and pop culture, and Mike Young, who is just as awesome as the bio below indicates.

JUST HOW AWESOME IS MIKE YOUNG? 

Mike Young is the author of the poetry collection We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough, an SPD Best Seller that was selected by readers of The Believer as one of the Top 20 Poetry Books of 2010. He is also the author of the story collection Look! Look! Feathers, which Publishers Weekly called "relevant, wise, and immensely enjoyable."

His work has appeared in LIT, Redivider, American Short Fiction, Nerve, Washington Square Review, BOMB, The Collagist, and many other literary magazines. He co-edits the free online/print literary magazine NOÖ Journal, runs Magic Helicopter Press, and writes for HTMLGIANT. His essay "Moves in Contemporary Poetry" (co-written with Elisa Gabbert) appears in adapted form in The Monkey & the Wrench: Essays into Contemporary Poetics, an anthology of contemporary poetics that's been called by ALA Choice "a must-read for those interested in writing poetry."

Young has taught writing, including online workshops, at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. His girlfriend is in Thailand, and he spends his days Skyping with her and dumping Old Bay on things in Baltimore, MD.

QUESTIONS: 

Email yobarrelhouse@barrelhousemag.com with any questions.