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Revising Poems for Publication with Justin Wymer on Zoom


Join poet and professor, Justin Wymer, as he conducts a one-day craft class on revising poems for publication.

Every poem is a living thing, an experiment in feeling and image, an exploration of psyche, an artist’s creation—a perfect example of crystalized subjective experience. Because the eye of the critic (and journal editor) is notoriously subjective, it is impossible to predict what they will love or hate. But it is possible to polish your poems as best you can and to avoid common craft choices that many editors have historically found distasteful. In other words, to publish work in periodic journals, it is important to revise your poems meticulously so that it is their content and not their craft that an editor passes judgment upon.

In this four-hour seminar and workshop, we will discuss revision strategies and the importance of matching your poetic style to that of the journal you wish to publish in. Craft topics that will be discussed include beginnings and endings, diction, register, line breaks, titles, image and image progression, form and content, and many others. By the end of the seminar, writers will have developed a toolbox of revision techniques that they can apply to their poems to make them as “clean” as possible for editors’ eyes.

Please bring one to four poems to revise in class.

This class is capped at 15 people. PLEASE NOTE that this course will be taught online via Zoom. Zoom link will be emailed at the time of workshop registation (please check junk/spam). Registration is $124 and can be completed at https://www.writerscenter.org/calendar/wymerrevisionzoom/

Please note: The Altman Persons of Color Scholarships are free and given on a first come, first served basis. PLEASE REGISTER FOR NO MORE THAN ONE SCHOLARSHIP SPOT PER MONTH. Please notify us right away if your plans change and you cannot attend the class. We will then reopen the slot so another student may register. Thank you in advance for this consideration.

Justin Wymer is a poet, scholar, and educator. Born and raised in southwestern West Virginia, he holds degrees from Harvard University and the Iowa Writers’s Workshop. Currently, he resides in Denver, where he is pursuing a PhD in creative writing and literary arts with a focus on trauma studies and literature of excess and difficulty.

A winner of the 2012 Captain Jonathan Fay Prize from the Radcliffe Institute for best thesis out of any discipline at Harvard College, Wymer has also received awards and fellowships from Harvard Office for the Arts, University of Iowa, University of Denver, Academy of American Poets, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Spanish Ministry for Culture and Sport.

Wymer’s poems, interviews, translations, and essays have appeared in various journals, including The Adroit JournalAtlantean PoetsBeecher’s, Boston Review‘s Poet Sampler (intro by Peter Sacks, 20 most-read poems of 2013), Columbia: A Journal of  Art and LiteratureConjunctionsHarvard Divinity BulletinKenyon ReviewLana Turner, Manchester Review (UK), Nat. Brut, Poetry Daily, The Rumpus, Souvenir Lit, and THRUSH Poetry Journal, and West Branch, among others. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Foglifter and an anthology on Appalachian labor poetics.

Wymer’s debut full-length collection, Deed, won the 2018 Antivenom Poetry Award, chosen by Jennifer Franklin, and will be published by Elixir Press in 2019.

Event Location and Ticket Information

Date: Saturday, November 21, 2020
Times: 12:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Ticket pricing:

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Presenter: Hudson Valley Writers Center
Presenter Phone: 9143325953