Thanks to a generous grant from The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, we will be partnering with Sturgis Library to present a FREE digital 4-week Generative Poetry Writing Workshop with four amazing poets! These workshops will be designed to teach you about multiple elements of craft and provide several generative writing exercises to get you writing. Each class will be geared towards beginner and intermediate poets, but ALL are welcome. Each class will be held over ZOOM. Registration is required. Register by following the link listed below or by calling us at the library at 508-240-5950.

On Tuesday the 5th, DeMisty D. Bellinger will lead the workshop.

On Tuesday the 12th, Teresa K. Miller will lead the workshop.

On the 19th, John Bonanni will lead the workshop.

On Tuesday the 26th, Chen Chen will lead the workshop.

Author Bios:

DeMisty D. Bellinger:

Besides writing, DeMisty D. Bellinger is a poetry editor at Malarkey Books, an alumni reader at Prairie Schooner, and a professor at Fitchburg State University. She has a BA in English from University of Wisconsin-Platteville, an MFA from Southampton College, and a PhD from the University of Nebraska. She is an alum of Bread Loaf and Marge Piercy’s Intensive Writing Workshop. Also, she attended the Vermont Studio Center on a fellowship. DeMisty lives in Massachusetts with her husband and twin daughters.

Teresa K. Miller:

Teresa K. Miller's second full-length poetry collection, Borderline Fortune (Penguin, Oct. 5, 2021), was selected as a winner of the National Poetry Series by former California poet laureate Carol Muske-Dukes and recently featured on NPR's Bookworm. A graduate of Barnard College and the Mills College MFA program, Miller is the author of sped (Sidebrow) and Forever No Lo (Tarpaulin Sky) as well as co-editor of Food First: Selected Writings from 40 Years of Movement Building (Food First Books). Her poems and essays have appeared in LitHub, ZYZZYVA, Common Dreams, and elsewhere. Originally from Seattle, she tends a mini orchard near Portland, Oregon.

John Bonanni:

A Best New Poets, Pushcart, and Best of the Net nominee, John Bonanni is a Cape Cod based writer who founded the Cape Cod Poetry Review in 2011. His poems have appeared in Foglifter, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Florida Review, Cortland Review, Washington Square Review, Verse Daily, Hobart, Seattle Review, and Gulf Coast, among others. He is the recipient of grants from the Mass Cultural Council, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, and Cape Cod Five Educators, scholarships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a residency from AS220 in Providence, RI. His book reviews have appeared in DIAGRAM,  Rain Taxi, Tupelo Quarterly, and the Kenyon Review. His research on poetry as an intervention for writing attitudes among learners with severe disabilities can be found in The Graduate Review (Bridgewater State University).  He holds a Master of Education from Bridgewater State University and is a candidate for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University, where he received the Exceptional Manuscript Scholarship. His manuscripts have been finalists for awards from New Issues Press, Fordham University Press, [PANK], Zone 3 Press, and Anhinga Press.

Chen Chen:

Chen Chen’s second book of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, is forthcoming from BOA Editions this September. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. In 2019 Bloodaxe Books published the UK edition. Chen is also the author of four chapbooks and the forthcoming book of essays, In Cahoots with the Rabbit God (Noemi Press, 2023). His work appears/is forthcoming in many publications, including Poem-a-Day and three editions of The Best American Poetry (2015, 2019, & 2021). He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from Kundiman and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at Brandeis University as the Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence and serves on the poetry faculty for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College and Stonecoast. This spring, he is also an associate lecturer for UMass Boston’s MFA program, teaching the core poetry workshop. With a brilliant team, he edits the journal, Underblong; with Gudetama the lazy egg, he edits the lickety~split. He lives in Waltham, MA with his partner, Jeff Gilbert and their pug, Mr. Rupert Giles.