Come Into Your Shell: Non-literary Forms in Poetry

In this generative workshop we will consider looking outside traditional forms in order to make poems--a restaurant menu, for example, instead of a sonnet; or online dating profiles instead of a sestina. Think dictionary entries, form letters, FAQs, multiple choice questionnaires, or amazon reviews. So often these quotidian forms help get us to emotional truths and say something beyond the ordinary. 

*Workshops hosted by Small Harbor Publishing serve as both creative spaces and fundraising initiatives. Facilitators receive 60% of ticket proceeds, while the remaining 40% supports SHP’s mission to support authors and sustain operations. All workshops are available at $15 or $25, whichever works for you. A limited number of BIPOC scholarships are available — please email operations@smallharborpublishing for additional information.

Denise Duhamel’s (she/her) most recent books of poetry are Pink Lady (Pitt Poetry Series, 2025), Second Story (2021), and Scald (2017). Blowout (2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In Which (2024) is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. She and the late Maureen Seaton co-authored five collections, the most recent of which was CAPRICE: Collaborations Collected, Uncollected, and New, Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she is a distinguished university professor in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.