Ever wanted to write poetry
people want to publish and
talk about?
I know what it's like to feel your art is getting rejected or even ignored. It's why so many poets keep submitting work, get MFAs, take part in contests, and desire fellowships.
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It all requires crafting work that people are looking for. Even making poetry for a poetry business means the art has to be the right quality.
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To prepare your work
for your poetry goals,​
join the Substation professional review forum to write poetry that editors publish and readers share.
Prepare your work for the world with:
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Private peer review to receive feedback and practice giving feedback
(all submissions are private, so you can use your poems in submissions without considered already published)
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An online, weekly poem-editing livestream where we focus on one member's poem
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Access to past and upcoming Craft Write workshops for poetry development
Substation Services
Craft Write Poetry Workshops
In addition to accessing peer review and getting feedback from our poetry editors, Substation members get access to attend Craft Write Poetry Workshops and watch previous sessions.
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These workshops cover different writing elements and techniques to elevate your technical knowledge.
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Links to the latest workshop and previous sessions can be accessed in the Craft Write section of the forum here. Please note each new session is limited to 10 on-screen participants, though all Substation members are able to watch live via a private Youtube link.
Past Craft Write Sessions
(Replays Available For Substation Members)
Write Well Through Improv
Facilitator: Penda Smith
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Silence your inner critic through mindfulness and improvisation. We’ll begin with playful improv exercises to warm up the body and mind, then dive into generative writing that may make you laugh, cry—or even pee a little. Readings may include Thich Nhat Hanh, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan. No improv experience needed—just a willingness to say yes, and.
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More On Penda Smith
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Penda Mbaye Z. Smith is a Cave Canem Fellow, educator, and mindfulness practitioner with a background in improvisational performance and poetry. Her workshops center joy, embodiment, and liberation through language. Drawing from traditions of Black poetics, somatic awareness, and play, she creates spaces where participants can write, reflect, and imagine freely.
I Would Eternal Sunshine
The Hell Outta You
w/ Kush Thompson
In dreams, memory wanders in fragments down a lane on which time is obsolete. Portaling back into our core memories through a hall of trap doors, this workshop invites you to remember weirdly as you write your own plot-twisting erasure poetry.
Join us as we time travel across the surrealist imagery of lucid dreams, memory reconstruction, and the visceral process of forgetting.
More On Kush Thompson
Author of A Church Beneath the Bulldozer (2014) and creator of the pink-haired Blk Hottie portraiture series, Kush Thompson is a Chicago-born poet, painter, educator, and fellow of Luminarts, Pink Door, and Cave Canem. She creates archival art; centering often on black girlhood and the mechanics of memory.
Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, Chicago Reader, The Washington Post, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015)
Every Word Must Conjure
w/ Denise R. Ervin
Every Word Must Conjure is a 2-hour generative writing workshop that dives into the differences between denotation and connotation in poetry. Specifically, the importance of word choice in conveying not only meaning, but ideas and images in an intentional way. Participants will have the chance to explore contemporary writing by poets of color, discussing and dissecting the syntax of each, and have time to generate new work in response to a prompt along with the opportunity to share it with the group.
More On Denise R. Ervin
Denise R. Ervin is a creative writer hewn from the streets, classrooms, and boardrooms of Detroit. She has spent more than two decades as a teaching artist, performing poetry around the country, and leading workshops for the likes of Literary Cleveland and the University of Michigan. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Vagabond City Lit, Harbinger Asylum, Third Wednesday Magazine, and others. She is a TWH (The Watering Hole) Graduate Fellow, an Obsidian Foundation Fellow, and a semifinalist for America’s Next Great Author. When she's not serving as a Program Manager for a local youth writing organization, Denise is working on several novel projects and her first full-length poetry manuscript, tentatively titled Palimpsest.
English To English
w/ Geoff Anderson
Translation is​ not an exercise limited to speakers of a single language, which is wonderful news because translation enters into a negotiation with art unlike any other medium.​ Join poet/facilitator Geoff Anderson on a series of exercises to interpret meaning, convey the thoughts of others, and incorporate our unique perceptions into a larger dialogue with poets.
Substation 2026
40
Every month
diVERSES Poetry & Business Development Forum
Valid until canceled
Access to the Peer-Review forum
Access to the Craft Write workshops
Access to the Sunday 8AM online poem editing workshop
Access To Editor's Table For Professional Poetry Feedback