WELCOME TO THE HVWC CALENDAR: home of all our upcoming readings, events and workshops. You can view by list or calendar (see right menu to choose). Click the colored tabs below to show only specific options. Our workshops run as multi-session series or one-day “intensives.” Note, we list the multi-session courses on the first day they meet only. The full dates of the session are described in the course descriptions. You would need to scroll back to the start date if you needed to enroll for something already underway. But do let us know if you want to join something in midstream since we need the blessing of the instructor. Questions? Email us.
Workshops – This category encompasses all one-day and multi-week classes, whether in person or via Zoom.
Readings – Our readings are in many different genres and take place in person, on Zoom, or both!
HVWC Recurring Events – This category encompasses such regular favorites as Open Mic, Open Write, and Submission Sunday.
Special Events – These other creative experiences are sure to interest our creative community!
Writing the Saturation Poem: a Generative Workshop with Jennifer Jean (via Zoom)
August 17 @ 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm
$130.00
Writers know, restraints on language create powerful poems. They focus the attention of a writer’s monkey-mind—which actively avoids a deep exploration of the heart of the poem they’re trying to write. Poetic restraints are often formal: fourteen lines for a sonnet, a syllabic count in a haiku, tanka, sijo; a refrain in a bop or villanelle; a shape on the page for a concrete poem; etcetera. Sometimes restraints are arbitrary: open a collection and write a poem using the first line of that poem, etcetera. Can an immersive experience be a restraint? Yes! Can it result in powerful poems? Yes! We see this in some types of ekphrastics—including: saturations, which are a type of ekphrastic poem written after or about an obsessive and immersive audio experience. In this workshop, instructor Jennifer Jean will discuss writing saturations for her recent collection VOZ. As well, students will explore potent saturations by Yusef Komunyakaa, David Baker, Anne Sexton, Adrian Matejka, and others. Students will leave with a grasp of the form, a reading list, and several drafts of their own amazing, music filled work.
NB: This class will be taught on Zoom (Saturday, August 17, 12:30-2:30 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 [email protected] with any questions.
Jennifer Jean’s poetry collections include VOZ, Object Lesson, and The Fool. Her resource book is Object Lesson: a Guide to Writing Poetry. She’s co-written and co-translated Where Do You Live? أين تعيش؟ (Arrowsmith Press, 2024) with Iraqi poet Dr. Hanaa Ahmed. As well, she’s edited the forthcoming anthology Other Paths for Shahrazad: a Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Arab Women (Tupelo Press, 2025). Her work appears in POETRY, Rattle, The Common, the Los Angeles Review, and On the Seawall. She’s received honors, residencies, and fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the Academy of American Poets, the Mass Cultural Council, DISQUIET, and the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jennifer is the senior program manager of 24PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center’s online writing program.