From Melissa, “The sonnet is one of the most flexible of poetic forms, lending itself to all kinds of formal innovations. We will look at a handful of contemporary sonnets and talk about how contemporary poets both follow and break the rules of the sonnet, as well as how the flexibility of the sonnet affects us as readers and inspires us as writers. Time permitting, we may also do a short sonnet exercise!”

Melissa Range is the author of Scriptorium, a winner of the 2015 National Poetry Series (Beacon Press, 2016), and Horse and Rider (Texas Tech University Press, 2010). Recent poems have appeared in Ecotone, The Iowa Review, The Nation, and Ploughshares. Range is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Originally from East Tennessee, she teaches creative writing and American literature at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. More information about Melissa is available at melissarange.com.