Developing Your Poetry Manuscript

There are as many ways to organize a collection of poems as there are poets who write them. And yet there are strategies and principles that can be useful across these differences. “If you have a book of twenty-four poems, the book itself should be the twenty-fifth,” Robert Frost has been quoted as saying.

Using this statement as a guide, Pauletta will offer various approaches she and other poets have used to create that cohesive whole, including the writing of poetic sequences. She will also provide resources for further study on the matter. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion, so come ready to talk about your struggles and successes in developing your own manuscript.

About Pauletta

Pauletta Hansel’s ten poetry collections include Will There Also Be Singing? (Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2024); Heartbreak Tree (Madville Publications, 2022), which won the Poetry Society of Virginia’s 2023 North American Book Award; and Palindrome (Dos Madres Press, 2017) winner of Berea College’s Weatherford Award in Poetry.  Her writing has been featured in Oxford American, Rattle, Appalachian Journal, Still: The Journal, Verse Daily and Poetry Daily, among others. Pauletta was Cincinnati’s first poet laureate, and the 2022 Writer in Residence for the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library.

Watch our In Conversation: Sara Moore Wagner & Pauletta Hansel here.