Class

The Language of Loss: A Poetry, Grief, and Healing Workshop

Grief resists ordinary language. It arrives in fragments, in silence, in the body — and it asks something of us that everyday speech cannot quite deliver. Poetry can.

In this four-hour online workshop, we use poetry as a portal into our own experience of mourning, memory, and loss. We will read and discuss selected poems by Jane Kenyon, Ted Kooser, Walt Whitman, Yehuda Amichai, Linda Pastan, Thom Gunn, and others, exploring how these poets found language for what resists language. Class time will be divided between close reading and discussion, guided writing exercises, and brief sharing of student work. There is no workshopping in the traditional sense — students will not receive written feedback on their drafts. Instead, participants are invited to share what they've written aloud, and responses from the group will focus on what moved or resonated, not critique.

No prior writing experience is required — only the willingness to show up and write honestly. Students should come prepared to write. All readings will be provided digitally in advance; there are no required books to purchase.

This workshop is open to writers at every level and to anyone navigating grief, loss, or life's harder passages.

In this class, students will:
-use poetry as a portal into their own experience of grief, loss, and memory
-practice writing as a form of reflection, healing, and discovery
-encounter poets who have navigated loss with honesty and craft