In this workshop, we’ll sink below the surface of language to discover the emotional, creative, and musical core of your poems. Through guided writing exercises, close reading, and discussion, we’ll explore what your poems are reaching for, and how to further shape them for greater clarity, resonance, and sonic impact.

From Justen: We are all creative. We are all storytellers. It comes naturally to us. All day, every day, we create through the stories we tell ourselves and others. We possess a wealth of material in the form of memories and our imaginations. Yet, when we sit to write, when faced with a blank page or screen, we often experience doubt, fear, and we don’t know where, or how to begin.

Everyone experiences some form of resistance to writing. How we deal with this resistance is the difference between being creative and being paralyzed. In this workshop you will learn how to write through the lens of gratitude, joy, and surrender. You will learn how to approach writing as a practice.

Believe it or not, writing can be playful, inspiring, and fun. You can learn how to write by writing. You don’t need to know what you are writing. You don’t need to know the full story. We will be “headlong to discover,” as William Stafford once said about his writing process. When we allow ourselves to be curious and open something always comes.

Justen Ahren is the founder of Devotion to Writing, a workshop, residency, and retreat helping writers cultivate a daily writing practice. He served as West Tisbury Poet Laureate from 2012-2015, and Martha’s Vineyard Poet Laureate from 2015-2018. Justen founded and directed Noepe Center for Literary Arts from 2007-2017. He’s published two collections of poetry, A Strange Catechism, and A Machine for Remember, and a forthcoming book on creating a daily writing practice based on his teaching writing for more than 10 years. Justen has an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. He’s been featured on NPR, been commissioned by Grammy award-winning composer Glen Roven, Wendy Taucher Dance Theater Opera, and John Sims’ Look Away project, and his poetry has been exhibited at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Website: devotiontowriting.com

Personal artist’s pages: justenahren.com

Instagram: @devotion_to_writing