All Pennwriters Courses are conducted in a “live” presentation format utilizing the Zoom platform. If a conflict arises based on the required meeting times, please contact the instructor and Online Courses Coordinator to find a possible solution. ALL sessions will be recorded. Recordings are available to participants for 1-2 weeks after each recorded session.
PLEASE NOTE:
You should receive a confirmation email upon registering for the course from both Club Express and the Online Classes Coordinator. If you do not receive either emails, please reach out to the Online Classes Coordinator immediately so you do not miss out on information for your class.
Stealing Fire: Essential Poetic Tools for Every Prose Writer
Course Information: Every writer faces the same challenge: how to make readers feel something profound in just a few words. Poets have been solving this problem for centuries, developing techniques that pack maximum emotional impact into minimal space. This course reveals their secrets and shows you how to apply them immediately to your poems, novels, memoirs, and short stories. Forget everything you think you know about poetry being "flowery" or impractical. We'll focus on poetry as a precision instrument—a way of seeing and shaping language that can transform flat scenes into unforgettable moments. You'll learn how poets use concrete details to suggest entire worlds, how they create tension through line and sentence structure, and how they make abstract concepts feel viscerally real. Through guided writing exercises and analysis of texts, we’ll investigate techniques like strategic repetition, controlled pacing, and what poets call "the turn"—that moment when a piece pivots to reveal its deeper meaning. We'll explore how these tools can solve common prose problems: sagging middles, weak endings, and characters who feel like cardboard cutouts. You'll leave with specific strategies for revision and a new awareness of how language itself can become a character in your writing.
Author Benefits/Takeaways—Participants will:
- Use concrete details to suggest whole worlds
- Solve sagging middles, weak endings, and cardboard characters
- Learn strategies for editing and revising
Instructor Bio:
Keith Kopka is the recipient of the 2019 Tampa Review Prize for his debut collection of poems,
Count Four (University of Tampa Press, 2020). His poetry and criticism have recently appeared in publications such as Best New Poets, American Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, the International Journal of the Book, and many others. He is also the author of the critical texts
Asking a Shadow to Dance: An Introduction to the Practice of Poetry (GRL 2018) and
Crossing Disciplines: A Cross-Curricular Writing Guide (Kendall Hunt, 2022). The recipient of the International Award for Excellence from the Books, Publishing & Libraries Research Network, his work has also been supported by the MacDowell Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, Centrum, and the Vermont Studio Center. Kopka served as the Director of Operations for Writers Resist, and he is currently a Senior Editor at Narrative Magazine and Poetry Editor at Philadelphia Stories. Born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, Keith spent many years touring the country in punk and hardcore bands. Currently, he directs the low-res MFA Program at Holy Family University in Philadelphia.