Writing From the End of the World with Caitlin Grace McDonnell (via Zoom)

Richard Wilbur said, “One of the jobs of poetry is to make the unbearable bearable by clear, precise confrontations.” When it feels like the world is ending, we notice things around us in a new way. Our attention becomes very present to detail. That’s what fueled my latest book of poems, Pandemic City, written while New York City was in lockdown in 2020. The world is always ending a little bit, isn’t it? In this workshop, we will lean into our anxieties and obsessions to find the beauty at their core. We will look at the unbearable with clear eyes and in naming it, render it bearable. We will read and write poems that bear witness to a fragile world. We will look at poems by Diane Seuss, Nicole Callihan, Omotara James. Jennifer Franklin, Jericho Brown, Eugenia Leigh and more.

NB: This class will be taught on Zoom (Saturday, June 22, 12:30-4:30 PM ET) and will be capped at 15 students. Registrants will receive the Zoom link to the email address they use to register. It will arrive immediately after registration so please check your spam folder if you do not receive it. It will also be sent the day before class as a reminder. Please review the course policies page before registering for any classes. Please email misty@writerscenter.org with any questions.

All HVWC scholarship applications will be available on May 1 and will be due on May 15 for all summer/fall 2024 classes. 

Caitlin Grace McDonnell was a New York Times Poetry Fellow at NYU where she received her MFA. She has published poems and essays widely, including a chapbook, Dreaming the Tree (2003) and two books of poems, Looking for Small Animals (2012) and Pandemic City (2021) She lives and teaches writing in NYC.