24PearlStreet Workshops and Events
LIVE via Zoom: 3-5pm (Eastern Time)
What does it mean for a poem to have “earned” its ending? And how do we craft poems that are both memorable and reward re-reading?
In this workshop, we will address these questions, as well as discuss poetic structure, counterpoise, and identify strategies for crafting surprising, yet seemingly inevitable, endings for our poems. Participants may read work by Jericho Brown, Elizabeth Bishop, Larry Levis, Paul Tran, and Victoria Chang, among others. They’ll also experiment with different strategies of closure in their own poems.
Biography
Nathan McClain is the author of two collections of poetry—Previously Owned (2022), which was longlisted for the 23rd annual Massachusetts Book Award, and Scale (2017)—both from Four Way Books. He is a recipient of fellowships from The Frost Place, Sewanee Writers Conference, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference; as well, he's a graduate from the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson. A Cave Canem fellow, his poems and prose have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Plume Poetry Anthology 10, The Common, Guesthouse, Poetry Northwest, and Zocalo Public Square, among others. He teaches at Hampshire College and serves as poetry editor of the Massachusetts Review.