Poetry Boot Camp

Molly is taking a sabbatical from teaching
Poetry Boot Camp in 2011.

Guest poets may be invited to teach camps
during the year. Stay tuned.

What if you postponed everything else your life for six days and just wrote poetry?

Poetry Boot Camp™ is a quick way to jumpstart your writing, improve your poems and overcome writer's block - in only six days.

During the camp you'll generate six new poems. You'll learn more about poetry by critiquing other poets and having your own work critiqued, and you'll get the nurturing and support that comes from sharing the experience with people who are working as hard on their writing as you are.

The critiquing is kind but honest, giving participants a safe place to show new poems and some ideas about improving them. The excitement of reading and writing new work pushes people through the barriers they may be up against in their writing.

This is a great place to try different things: going deeper into tough subjects, experimenting with new forms, exploring different voices. People pick up ideas from each others' poems, too, and are inspired to try new approaches to their own work.

Whether you write all the time and want more of a community, or can't find time to write and want a tough deadline, Poetry Boot Camp™ will help. If you're a beginner and want more exposure to poetry, you'll get it here. If you're an experienced poet and want to push yourself, this is a good place to do it.

How It Works: After teaching the workshop for ten years, I am making some changes to the structure and the pricing. There are now three tracks to Poetry Boot Camp.

WORKSHOP Track: Participants write a poem every day for six days and e-mail it to everyone else. Participants are assigned one poem of someone else's to critique every day. Molly critiques two of each participants' poems during the week and sends the critiques out to everyone, using them as teaching tools. So you'll receive six critiques of your own work from a peer and two from Molly, and you'll see ten more critiques and learn about how poems are built and improved on. Price: $150.

CRITIQUE Track: This is the original format for Poetry Boot Camp. Participants write a poem every day for six days and e-mail it to everyone else. Participants are assigned one poem of someone else's to critique every day. Molly critiques everyone's poem every day. Price: $450.

REVISION Track: This is a private workshop, where you send me a poem of any vintage every day for six days, and Molly critiques it. Price $450.

Requirements: Basic e-mail skills and commitment. This workshop is intense. You can hold down a job and participate, but it's hard to produce new writing if you have many other outside obligations. Please make sure your schedule is clear and you're willing to finish before you sign up. Beginning through experienced poets are welcome.