Poetry Forge makes space for poets & secret poets

through online and in person writing workshops & retreats, practice periods, creative mentorship

& an annual manuscript incubator called A Body of Work.

All are welcome.

Explore

This is imagination school

Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.

—Audre Lorde

"It is no small thing to create and hold welcoming, creative, beautiful, soft space in this world, and Holly is doing it. And she is teaching by example, which is of course the best way to teach."

—Kim F., Poetry Forge Student since 2020

What We Do

We are paying attention.

We are writing poems.

We are imagining a future and insisting that art and ideas and creativity be part of it.

We are practicing softly, softly.

We are materializing our inner lives.

We are saving ourselves and some of our kin.

We are fostering places where poetry lives on and beyond the page.

We are repairing some of the damage that has been done in other times, other places.

Poetry is our way of being in the world.

Workshops
& Classes

Now enrolling

TELL EVERYONE

Now, today, I shall

sing beautifully for

my friends’ pleasure

SAPPHO (Mary Barnard, Translation)

Join Us

Poetry Forge offers year-round programming for emerging writers from across North America, Europe and beyond. We also offer free workshops at the end of the year and once each spring. Subscribe to the mailing list to receive an occasional letter, Ars Poetica, containing resources and reflections of interest to poets and secret poets, news about upcoming offerings, and musings about life on the southern coast of Maine.

The practice of poetry helps us to exist in deeper sympathy with our other knowing, our creative potential, and our truest selves.

It teaches us to value what might otherwise be overlooked, or remain invisible.

Cultivating an artistic life—living the poems, as it were—helps us to feel and appreciate the particular textures and experiences that make up our days.

—Holly Wren Spaulding

Founder, Poetry Forge