Jeanine’s Poetry Tutorial

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This four-person class is a yearlong journey through craft, intention, and ideas. We read essays on poetry and poetics by writers such as Natasha Trethewey, Dorothea Lasky, Theodore Roethke, and Carl Phillips, engage with a diverse selection of poems, and read full chapbooks to discuss, understand, and emulate. Students workshop a poem weekly, lead discussions on each other's poems, and engage with generative writing prompts to deepen their relationship to their own poetry and discover how the poems speak to each other. All will finish the course with a chapbook manuscript ready to submit for publication.

This class is available by application on July 1, with a final due date of August 1 and the early deadline for first consideration on July 22. Register below to receive an application. Four students will be selected based on their work sample, their commitment to their own work and to supporting the work of their fellow classmates, and the ways in which they may be deemed able to grow as poets and contribute to each other’s growth. Finalists will be asked to connect with Jeanine on a 15-minute Zoom call to check on goals, availability, and commitment. Selected students will be notified by Friday, August 15.

Enthusiasm for JPT from previous students:

“Jeanine has an infectious passion and understanding of received and contemporary poetic forms. She devotes time to the reading and analysis of modern poets, literary criticism, and essays on poetics. Jeanine demonstrates intellectual rigor, creative openness, emotional intelligence and psychological insight in her instruction, workshop facilitation and tutorials— all the human superpowers demanded of great art and great poetry.” - Seth Rosenbloom, JPT 2023-2025

“In the final months of class, you carefully chose poetry books that were similar to our individual themes and styles so that we could analyze these for structure elements. This not only helped me as I put together my own manuscript, but I have found what I learned to have a profound effect on how I read poetry books now. Shortly after the class ended, my manuscript was accepted for publication, and this would not have happened without Jeanine’s Poetry Tutorial!” - Cindy Buchanan, JPT 2023-2025

“Many years ago, when I was working in the teaching arena, someone asked me, ‘What makes a really extraordinary teacher?’ I posed the same question to my students and fellow faculty members. The consensus was a combination of qualities: the possession of great breadth and depth of knowledge in the subject being taught: the embrace of various learning styles and the acceptance of, and respect for, students as complex human beings: a playful sense of humor; an organized way of managing time that is subtle but efficient; and the ability to create a supportive atmosphere where all voices are heard. Jeanine Walker possesses all of these qualities.” - Paula Stenberg, JPT 2023-2025

”I have been in a doctoral program, and Jeanine's structure holds the rigor of such a program. She presents us with high-level readings on craft, exposes us to a wide variety of poets and styles, and leads our discussion each week so that we continue to grow and learn and experiment in our own work. I am grateful for her tutorial. For me, it was so much better than a short course because we all committed to a journey of growth and learning. I highly recommend investing in Jeanine's tutorial because this is ultimately an investment in yourself.” - Kathy Pon, JPT 2023-2025

"I wrote so many new poems and learned a great deal about giving and receiving constructive feedback. My chapbook and full-length manuscripts exist only because of our workshop. More than 70% of your tutorial students have had their books either accepted or chosen as a finalist. That’s an amazing track record." - Kimberly Kralowec, JPT 2020-2022

The class was great! Intensive, supportive, interesting, varied, fun. Jeanine is a wonderful teacher -- organized, flexible, and inspiring. She gives extensive and astute feedback on all individual poems and manuscripts. She selects readings that are challenging, interesting, and diverse. I really appreciated the inclusion of so many BIPOC and LGBTQ+ writers (both poets and essayists). Jeanine supports each student so that they can develop into the best poet they were meant to be. – Bill Hollands, JPT 2020-2022

Jeanine’s Poetry Tutorial students have published the manuscripts completed in tutorial!

Kimberly Kralowec, The Saplings Think of Us as Young. Kelson Books, 2023 (full length).
Kimberly Kralowec, We retreat into the stillness of our own bones, 2022 (chapbook).
Bill Hollands, Mangrove, forthcoming from ELJ Editions, September 2025 (full length).
Carol Tiebot, Each Time, a Forest, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in September 2025 (chapbook).
Kathy Pon, Orchard Language, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in September 2025 (chapbook).
Cindy Buchanan, Hungry Ghosts, forthcoming from Aldrich Press, 2026 (full length).