Writing Poetry About Grief

In this five week, online workshop-course, participants will write and workshop poems about grief and loss in a safe and welcoming environment. In addition to facilitating a discussion of your poems, I will provide constructive written feedback on your work. We will also read together (during class time) published poems about grief and discuss the literary techniques and devices employed by the authors. Also, during each class, I will provide a prompt for an in-class writing exercise that will help you generate material and approach your poetry writing in fresh ways.

Writers at any level of experience are welcome to take this course.

Importantly, this course has a limited enrolment of eight people; the small group size allows ample time for a thorough discussion of each other’s work.

Note: For the purposes of this workshop, grief is not necessarily limited to death, but can include any kind of significant loss (for example the end of a romantic partnership or a friendship), and more systemic causes of grief (for example, ecological grief).

About your instructor:

Jacob Scheier is a Governor General’s Award winning poet and has published three full length collections of poetry with ECW Press. His poems have been published widely in magazines and anthologies across North America, as well as nominated for a National Magazine Award and longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Jacob has been facilitating workshops on grief and loss for over a decade, including for the Toronto Metropolitan University’s (formerly Ryerson University) School of Continuing Education, the peer support organization Bereaved Families of Ontario, and with First Nations communities in Ontario and in the Yukon.

Dates: October 29—November 26, 2024

Cost: $250 CAD

To register or for more information, please contact griefwriting@gmail.com