Grief is universal. All peoples, and most animals, experience it. It is also individual. We each suffer grief uniquely. It is perhaps our strongest emotion and yet the most difficult to describe to others. In this writing workshop, we will explore the ways that poems can provide a language for our deepest losses. All levels of writing are welcome. No registration necessary.

Melissa Kwasny is the author of seven books of poetry, as well as a collection of essays. The recipient of Poetry Society of America’s Cecil Hemley and Alice Fay di Castognola awards, she is also the editor of Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800-1950 (Wesleyan University Press, 2004) and co-editor, with M.L. Smoker of I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poets in Defense of Global Human Rights (Lost Horse Press, 2009). She shared the position of Montana Poet Laureate with M.L. Smoker from 2019-2021. In 2021, Kwasny and Smoker were named Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows.