sparks to illuminate the poet’s path

ENROLLMENT IS OPEN 

Our theme is Radiant/Darkness.

 

"Soon the nights will lengthen,
you will lean into the year
humming like a saw.
You will fill the lamps with kerosene,
knowing somewhere a line breaks,
a city goes black,
people dig for candles in the bottom drawer.
You will be ready. You will use the song like a match."

—Naomi Shihab Nye

Many Lanterns is a guided writing program offering 21 concise lessons that emphasize playful experimentation and a posture of warmth and openness toward your individual creative process.

 The form of this experience has been distilled to contain the essential elements, offering poets and secret poets:

~21+ brief and approachable ways to begin a new poem. Leave the course with as many new drafts.

~21+ examples of what's possible in poetry

~Craft pointers and helpful techniques to support the development and revision of your works in progress, for when you want to stay with a new piece of writing, rather than putting it aside and forgetting about it

Lessons are voice guided by Holly (MP3), with accompanying written documentation (PDF) to serve diverse learning styles. Each teaching is between 3 and 10 minutes long, with the intention of leaving you plenty of time to focus on the writing itself.

Many Lanterns is gentle, encouraging, and intended to strengthen your writing, as well as your poet's heart. Whether you complete it within a span of weeks, or stretch it over several months, it's here to keep your poetry lamp from going dark. 

Does it help to have someone by your side to ensure you stay lit? Do you long to connect to that source of heat within yourself?   

Your lantern bearer is Holly Wren Spaulding. Her method is trustworthy and transformative. 

Join us during this season of long nights. We will walk through the darkness together.

Tuition: $415

or $139/ month for a three month payment plan 

Many Lanterns is offered asynchronously and can enjoyed at your own pace. You may begin the course anytime.

FAQ

Holly Wren Spaulding is an award winning writer, teaching artist, and the founder of Poetry Forge, where she offers creative writing workshops, retreats, and a manuscript incubator. She is a graduate of the creative writing program at Interlochen Arts Academy and holds advanced degrees from the University of Michigan and Trinity College Dublin. In addition to running her own school, Holly is an instructor at Interlochen College of Creative Arts and Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. Recent publications include Familiars (Alice Greene & Co., 2020), Fire (St. Brigid Press, 2021), and Between Us (Alice Greene & Co., 2022). Spaulding's poems, essays, reviews and articles have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Witness, Poetry Northwest, New York Times, and in numerous anthologies, including The Poetry of Presence and The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. She lives and writes on the southern seacoast of Maine.