Writing Toward Wisdom

A five-session online workshop with Anita Skeen

All writing is discovery.  We’re trying to work something out, to discover how we really feel about a person, place or event, to try to come out of the finished poem with both some knowledge for ourselves and for the audience. 

We may look back at family to see what wisdom we can gain about ourselves.

We may consider that there is always memory – what memories do we have, and what kind of wisdom have we gained now that we didn’t have at the time the memory was an event?

And we may ask, what situations do we find ourselves in where writing might offer a way to come to a better understanding of our experience?

We will begin writing toward wisdom by looking at some poems in You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon, which everyone enrolled in the workshop will need to have a copy of, then move on to other selected poems. Limon writes in her introduction. “We are here, together in this moment, crucial and urgent, yes, but also full of wonder and awe at every turn.” In our class we will be together reading, writing, and gaining wisdom from our shared wonder and awe.

Instructor: Anita Skeen

Required text: You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon

Five Tuesdays, 6:00-8:00 EST, January 13, 20, 27 and February 3 and 10, 2026