The Southern Collective Experience

10/02/2026

The next “Craft Tutorial” is here! Come join the conversation, read and revise with me.

In this virtual two-part tutorial, we’ll look closely at the poems that stay with us long after they are read and explore the craft choices that give them their particular power.

Through close reading, discussion, and guided revision, we’ll examine how image, language, line breaks, structure, voice, metaphor, and other poetic elements work together to create a poem’s distinctive impact.

Together, we’ll consider a poem’s “X-factor”—the quality that makes a poem feel alive, surprising, resonant, or difficult to forget—and put those discoveries into practice as we revise our own work.

Open to writers at all levels. Space is limited to 15 participants.

Learn more and reserve your spot: https://richard-blanco.com/workshops/

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08/27/2026

I’m grateful to be part of “Singing Resistance,” a powerful evening of music, poetry, dance, and community in support of Maine’s immigrant community and the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP).

The evening brings together an extraordinary lineup of Maine artists, including the Pihcintu Multinational Girls’ Choir, Madeleine Hanna and the Jawahir Arabic Music Ensemble, Somali oud player and singer Hadithi Abdulle, Franco-American poet Jeri Thériault, and the Singing Resistance chapters of Portland and Brunswick/Topsham. I’ll be joining by video, and I’ve donated signed copies of my poems, which will be available for purchase by donation.

At a moment when immigrant communities are facing so much uncertainty and fear, gatherings like this matter. Come stand in solidarity—and help support ILAP’s vital work providing legal services, community education, and advocacy for low-income immigrants and their families.

Saturday, October 24 | 7–9 p.m.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Woodfords Congregational Church,
202 Woodfords St., Portland, Maine

Admission is by cash donation at the door, with proceeds benefiting ILAP and participating artists impacted by recent immigration activity.

I hope you’ll join us for an evening of music, poetry, community, and resistance.

Woodfords Congregational Church, Portland, Maine Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP) UU Church of Brunswick Maine

08/27/2026