Small Harbors:

A Summer of Living the Poem

Small Harbors invites you to a summer of attention, imagination, and wonder. Receive a parcel. Open a poem. Settle into dappled light, sea air, and quiet delight.

A poetic care package and guided retreat — hand-assembled parcels, weekly audio letters, and live gatherings to touch, linger with, and savor.

July 3–31, 2026

This summer, let your days arrive slowly — with curiosity, with care, with room to breathe.

Small Harbors is a five-part, tactile experience that begins when a hand-assembled box arrives at your door, each item inside wrapped like a secret. The poems, provocations, and objects have been chosen to inspire attention, delight, and imagination — guiding you toward the art of living the poem—and then writing them.

Each part invites you to pause, notice, and create — to inhabit the poetry of summer days.

Lift the ribbon. Feel the weight of a handmade talisman. Slowly.

you will receive

Opening Workshop (90 min):
Gather with Holly to begin the journey, set intentions, and write. On Zoom.

Friday, July 3 at 3-4:30pm Eastern.

Weekly Audio Letters:
A brief reflection tuned to that week's theme, with gentle provocations to carry into your days. These arrive via email.

Closing Ceremony (90 min):
Come back together to write, reflect, and celebrate your words and your way of being a poet in the world. On Zoom.

Friday, July 31 at 3-4:30pm Eastern.

Hand-Assembled, Limited-Edition Small Harbors Retreat Box:
Curated objects and poetry to accompany your writing experience. This gift is meant to be a surprise — and I've loved making and curating the contents as a way of sharing some of the beauty of my world with you.

Enrollment

Tuition: $425

Each limited-edition box is assembled by hand in my Maine studio — with care and imagination. These boxes will be shipped starting June 17th, to USA addresses, via relaxed shipping. If you live abroad and wish to participate in Small Harbors, I have an option designed just for you. Please get in touch for details.

Reserve Your Place

Small Harbors is a pause, a shimmer of light, an invitation back to yourself, via your pen. This is about slipping away. It's about the Long Thought. About recommitting to beauty. Repairing your spirit through soft attention.

Let the season unfold slowly, luxuriously — with small delights, poems, and experiences under an open sky.

Come moor yourself here. Set out again. Return.

Small Harbors is presented by Holly Wren Spaulding: author, flower worshipper, and maker of ceramic objects. For more than 20 years she has been gathering communities and guiding writers in the art of living the poem—as a way of being in the world and as a considered political stance. Holly writes and gardens on the seacoast of Southern Maine, where she offers retreats, writing workshops, and The Casual Union of Working Poets through her teaching practice, Poetry Forge. Holly's books include Familiars, If August, Between Us, and Fire.