letter to PSOV members…
I am getting excited about the upcoming PSOV Spring Workshop at the Hotel Coolidge on Saturday, May 3rd. The first thing that you should know, as of Sunday April 6, we have 28 members signed up. That means that we have only two slots left since we cap attendance at 30. So, if you wish to attend and haven’t signed up, I would encourage you to do asap! (PSOV Spring Workshop Sign Up.) [The Spring Workshop is full as of April 8, complete this form if you wish to be added to a waiting list. 2025 Spring Workshop Waiting List.
Our workshop leader will be Neil Shepard, an American poet, essayist, professor of creative writing, and literary magazine editor. Neil has published nine full collections of poetry, his most recent, The Book of Failures (Madville Publishing, 2024, see review on SevenDaysVT.) Neil taught for many years in the BFA writing program at Johnson State College in Vermont, as well as in the MFA writing program at Wilkes University (PA). He founded and directed for eight years the writing program at the Vermont Studio Center, and he edited for a quarter-century the literary magazine Green Mountains Review. Recently, he founded the online magazine Plant-Human Quarterly and serves as its editor-in-chief.
Another important bit of information is that PSOV cannot promise that all poems sent in for the workshop will be reviewed at the workshop. This decision was made due to the significant increase in the number of spring & fall poetry submissions, and the time contraints of reviewing all poems at the workshops. For these reasons we were compelled to cut back in a fair and appropriate manner. Now, we send the poems to the workshop leader to select a variety of poems to read and review at the workshop, from which we can all learn–even if it is not our own. The PSOV Spring & Fall workshop leaders no longer provide written comments/feedback on all poems submitted.
Fortunately, for us all, PSOV doesn’t limit how many poets send poems to the Spring or Fall Poetry Contests, and your vote is important in selecting the top ten poems. I will announce the Members’ Choice Vote for the top ten poems at the Spring Workshop in White River Junction on May 3rd. We will be posting the PSOV Members’ Choice Voting Form and link to a document with all poems submitted to the Spring Poetry Contest in next Monday’s poetry newsPost (April 14th,) if not before.
If you have any additional questions, feel free to contact me at: workshop@poetrysocietyofvermont[dot]org (change [dot] to a period to avoid the bots.)
I hope to see you at the workshop!
Sincerely,
David Hartnett
PSOV Executive Secretary