WORKSHOPS AND TALKS
Since my arrival in Washington, D.C. in 2007, my work outside the university has involved creating communities of writers within the city and in my travels beyond it, leading workshops and classes in poetry writing, reading literature, poetry and yoga, and mindfulness (I am certified by Tara Brach’s and Jack Kornfield’s Mindfulness Teacher Training Program), and engaging with regional writers as well as at Kripalu in Lenox, MA; in Santa Fe, NM; in Pueblo, CO; as well as in Italy, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, and elsewhere. In Washington, these communities sometimes branch out into smaller subsets, and I am still teaching students here who began with me nearly twenty years ago. We started in places like The Writers Center and later met in participants’ homes; then online. This work beyond academe calls together diverse groups of all ages and backgrounds, from college-aged adults to the likes of my dear “student,” the late Henry Morganthau III, who published his first book at 100 and was featured on NPR.
Please register for workshops marked “spaces still available” only. I will not be able to hold payment for future, unscheduled workshops or create wait-lists.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
April Drop-in Workshop
Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Time: 7 pm - 10 pm
Availability: Capped at 10
Cost: $50
Course Description:
In this workshop-style course, students will bring a poem to class and workshop it that evening (hence the reason for the cap on the class at 10). In the middle of the course, we will turn our attention to a sample poem of my choosing, looking at it as an example of a craft approach or other technique as a theme first the evening. Everyone will have 12 minutes to workshop. Two hours will be devoted to your poems, thirty minutes for a short study, a ten minute break in the middle, and any remaining time for other conversations that might arise.
How to sign up for this workshop (while seats are available):
1) Sign up through Zoom with the registration button:
2) Once you register, pay through Venmo:
3) Upon registering, the Zoom link for the gathering will be automatically sent to you.
How to prepare for this course:
1) Choose any prompt from my list of prompts here on the webpage.
2) Stick with that prompt; don’t give up on it. If after several drafts your poem is truly going nowhere, you may select another.
3) Have a poem ready for workshopping on the evening of the course when you sign on.
4) Be ready to share the poem on Zoom.
May Drop-in Workshop
Date: Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Time: 7 pm - 10 pm
Availability: Capped at 10
Cost: $50
Course Description:
In this workshop-style course, students will bring a poem to class and workshop it that evening (hence the reason for the cap on the class at 10). In the middle of the course, we will turn our attention to a sample poem of my choosing, looking at it as an example of a craft approach or other technique as a theme first the evening. Everyone will have 12 minutes to workshop. Two hours will be devoted to your poems, thirty minutes for a short study, a ten minute break in the middle, and any remaining time for other conversations that might arise.
How to sign up for this workshop (while seats are available):
1) Sign up through Zoom with the registration button:
2) Once you register, pay through Venmo:
3) Upon registering, the Zoom link for the gathering will be automatically sent to you.
How to prepare for this course:
1) Choose any prompt from my list of prompts here on the webpage.
2) Stick with that prompt; don’t give up on it. If after several drafts your poem is truly going nowhere, you may select another.
3) Have a poem ready for workshopping on the evening of the course when you sign on.
4) Be ready to share the poem on Zoom.
PAST WORKSHOPS
-
SOLD OUT: Politics and Prose: Online course, The Poetry of Mary Oliver
https://www.politics-prose.com/class/online-class-mary-oliver-and-quest-of-openness-are-you-willing-2484ONLINE CLASS: Mary Oliver and the Quest of Openness: “Are You Willing”? (2484)
Two Thursdays: July 11 and 18 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET OnlinePrice: $85 per person (10% off for members)
Lecture and Discussion. This live class will be recorded and available for later viewing.
Sign up early! Registrations placed within 12 hours of class start are not guaranteed live attendance to first class.
“Five years after her death, I have begun to write and speak publicly about my lucky and long-time association with Mary Oliver, as enigmatic a poetic figure as Rumi, to whom she is often compared. Without a doubt, Mary’s personal influence and encouragement changed the direction of my life. Her poetry continues to do the same for millions of readers whom she had never met. What are the ingredients to this intimacy of voice? Where are the essential designs behind her poems across the stages of her career? In her essay, “The Swan,” she wrote that she demands three things of every poem: an honest energy, a genuine body, and a spiritual purpose. In these afternoon talks, with time set aside for discussion and questions, we will study the ways these rules apply to some of her beloved poems, with our emphasis falling on the theme of openness and willingness which threaded through her work in all its manifestations.”
Two Thursdays: July 11 and 18 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET Online
[Another section of this course will be added in September 2024]
Required Reading:
Devotions by Mary Oliver (9780399563263)
Mary Oliver chose David Keplinger’s first collection of poetry, The Rose Inside, for the 1999 T.S. Eliot Prize. They remained friends for twenty years until her death in 2019. Since that first collection, David has published seven more collections of poetry, including Ice (Milkweed Editions, 2023), and Another City (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which was awarded the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize. He has been honored with the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Colorado Book Award. David directs the MFA at American University where he has taught since 2007.
More about David : http://www.davidkeplingerpoetry.com/
and his Mindfulness Initiative at American : http://www.davidkeplingerpoetry.com/themindfulnessinitiative
-
SOLD OUT: A Book of Poems is a Poem: Full manuscript workshop
This is a five-part course in which two books per session will be workshopped by the class. All five classes are required for entry into the course.Number of sessions: 5
Cost: $400
Length of workshop: 2.5 hours each session
-
Talks with the Mindfulness Initiative at American University
Ongoing free events around the ways that mindfulness touches different disciplines at AUFriday Meditations and Poetry Talks with David
Half hour sessions each Friday morning at 9 am
Surrey Street Group, ca. 2012
“The children’s hands,” Philadelphia, 2018