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Let the Ghost In: Writing What Haunts Us with Diannely Antigua

A 1-Day Online Poetry Workshop

Thursday: October 23, 6 - 9 PM

In this generative poetry workshop, we’ll explore the ghosts we carry—memories, questions, griefs, dreams, and echoes of self that resist silence. To write what haunts us is to make contact with the invisible, to name what lingers, to transform fear or sorrow into something alive on the page. Through writing exercises, close readings, and open discussion, we’ll learn how to invite the haunting in—not to be overtaken by it, but to listen, respond, and reshape it into art.

We’ll look to poets who have skillfully conjured the haunted and the haunting like Natalie Diaz, Diane Seuss, and Ocean Vuong. Participants will leave with several drafts, ideas for longer projects, and a renewed sense of how to write bravely into what follows us—even when we’re trying to move on. No prior workshop experience necessary. All who have been haunted are welcome.

$90 Members/$135 Nonmembers


Diannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator, born and raised in Massachusetts. She is the author of two poetry collections, Ugly Music (YesYes Books, 2019), which was the winner of the Pamet River Prize and a 2020 Whiting Award, and Good Monster (Copper Canyon Press, 2024). She received her BA in English from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she won the Jack Kerouac Creative Writing Scholarship, and received her MFA at NYU, where she was awarded a Global Research Initiative Fellowship to Florence, Italy. She is the recipient of additional fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, Fine Arts Work Center Summer Program, and was a finalist for the 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and chosen for The Best of the Net Anthology. Her poems can be found in Poem-a-Day, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. From 2022-2024, she was the 13th Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, NH, the youngest and first person of color to receive the title. In 2023, she was awarded an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship to launch The Bread & Poetry Project, and in 2024, she was awarded an Excellence in Artistry Award from Black Lives Matter New Hampshire. She currently teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the University of New Hampshire as the inaugural Nossrat Yassini Poet in Residence. She hosts the podcast Bread & Poetry which seeks to make poetry accessible to all in a way that nourishes the soul.


ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED
All MWPA workshops require advanced registration. We accept registration by phone, mail, and online via our website. We cannot guarantee registration in the final 24-hours before a workshop, and can rarely accommodate day-of registration.

PAYMENT & CANCELLATION POLICIES
If you need to withdraw from a class after registering for any reason, please email or call the MWPA immediately. You may be eligible for a partial refund or credit, depending on how far in advance you cancel. → MORE INFORMATION

QUESTIONS
For any questions regarding this workshop, please contact programs@mainewriters.org.

REGISTER BY PHONE
Call 207-200-7180 and register with your VISA or MasterCard.

REGISTER BY MAIL
If you prefer to pay by mail, please print this registration form (downloadable PDF) and mail it to the MWPA with a check or credit card information.

SCHOLARSHIP
The MWPA is proud to offer one partial scholarship to this workshop for members-only. Scholarships are awarded on a combination of need and merit. Application Due two weeks prior to the workshop start date, at 9:00 a.m.
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MWPA WORKSHOP POLICIES
Registration in any MWPA workshop, program, or event constitutes your agreement to our terms and conditions. → MORE INFORMATION