This Might Help: A Poetry Class

Classes are currently full. This page will update when space opens.

In this weekly workshop on Sunday afternoons, we will study poets who find comfort in the midst of difficulty.

We will examine comfort in all of its forms: love, humor, food, pleasure, the senses, the physical body, spirituality, ancestral wisdom, connection to self and others, language, artistic expression, nature and more. While reading together and responding to prompts, we will remember the poet Matthew Zapruder’s words, that: "The role of poetry in our time of crisis is the same as always: to preserve our minds and language, so we may be strong for whatever is to come. And also, to preserve the possibility of mutual understanding, not by arguing for it, but by demonstrating it."

Poets on the reading list include: Jeffery McDaniel, Rita Dove, Dean Young, Alice Walker, Ross Gay, Ellen Bass, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lucille Clifton, Gary Soto, Li Young Lee, Kevin Young, Seamus Heaney, Kim Addoinzo, Denise Duhamel, James Tate, Matthew Olzmann, Maggie Nelson, Robert Bly, Eileen Myles, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, Tony Hoagland, W.S. Merwin, Charles Simic, Belle Waring, Larry Levis, Marianne Boruch and many more.

This class is free and available to the public on Zoom. Log in details will be sent to participants upon registration.

The class will be led by writer and human rights professional Emily Sernaker. Emily's work has appeared in Ms. Magazine, The Sun, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, McSweeney's and more. She is a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar and a staff writer for the International Rescue Committee.