4 Ways to Build Your Community as a Self-Guided Learner
Self-learning is one of the most admirable things a poet can do. As a self-learner, you’re choosing to push yourself and expand your horizons without the guidance or structure of an MFA program, harnessing the power of the mighty internet and poets around you to shape your own education.
There are numerous benefits to this approach, but one drawback of forging your own path is the lack of built-in community offered by academic programs. There’s no communal identity to relate over, no shared educational status. You have to put in the work to find your places and poets.
Luckily, there are plenty of other options for building community—and more communities, both in-person and virtual, are forming all the time!
Here’s how to get started building your own poetry cohort.
1) Attend Local Poetry Open Mics
Going to local poetry shows offers three invaluable things:
The opportunity to chat with other writers
Hearing poems out loud
Reading your own work out loud to an audience
All of these are powerful ways to feel connected to other poets and experience community while also tuning your ear.
Writing is often solitary, and live readings remind us how many of us are out there! Trust: we are legion.
At The Poetry Lab, we know it can be equally exhilarating and scary to take the stage. We recommend summoning that inner courage—it’s worth it! Sharing your poems out loud is a path to becoming more familiar and in-tune with your own voice.
If you’re feeling shy, remember: people don’t attend open mic nights to disparage each other. Fellow writers are usually thrilled to cheer each other on! At least, the ones whose opinions are worth worrying about.
Resources for finding events:
2) join a book club
Building community is also about reading more poetry books in conversation with other poets. Reading poetry is extremely important in growing as a writer, and we’ll always advocate for it as a great way to both feel connected to other writers and grow your own ability.
More than the motivation of a deadline, poetry book clubs allow writers dedicated time and space to discuss poetry. When we read together, we get to learn through each others’ perspectives, seeing a poem more wholistically and from multiple perspectives.
To find book clubs, you can check sites like Meetup, ask your local libraries and bookstores, research virtual groups on social media, or set up your own group with other poets you know.
The Poetry Lab is introducing our first book club in 2023. Find out more here!
3) Take a Feedback Workshop—or Organize Your Own!
Another important step both in learning about poetry AND building community is getting—and giving—feedback. One of the best ways to engage in trading feedback? Workshops and writing groups!
Workshops provide hands-on lessons about craft, theory, and editing, and you get to learn directly alongside fellow poets. In my experience, there’s also a fair amount of commiseration and camaraderie. In these settings, it’s easy to find poets who you enjoy, naturally root for, and want to stay in touch with.
These days, you can also find highly qualified teachers and instructors outside of the university setting, giving you the opportunity to find some truly great mentors.
HOW TO FIND POETRY WORKSHOPS
Depending on where you’re located in the world, there may be free critique workshop spaces. For example, Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA offers a free workshop on Wednesday nights.
Rattle Poetry offers a free weekly workshop livestream on Fridays called Critique of the Week. Tim Green, the editor at Rattle, workshops a few writer-submitted poems every week—and you can even submit your own poem for the drawing.
We have the Feedback Circle here at The Poetry Lab. If you have about 5 poems ready to receive comments then this may be a good next step for you. It is absolutely okay to be a beginner in our feedback space.
If you’re wondering whether a poet you likes teaches workshops, check their website! Plenty of poets teach classes once or twice a year that are open to poets of all levels.
In Surreal Life run and created by poet Shira Erlichman is one of our favorite examples of this.
Can’t find a workshop that meets your needs? You can always start your own writing group! Just reach out to other writers you’d like to share feedback with, set a time and place, and start sharing. You can even meet remotely, which means you can have a writing group with folks from anywhere in the world. If you need to meet people to invite to your writing group, Local Poetry Open Mics and virtual events are great places to start.
4) Volunteer
There are tons of poetry organizations and publications regularly looking for volunteers who love reading poetry and want to grow their experience while also being good literary citizens by supporting an organization in need.
Volunteering puts you directly into a community of poets, and is a great way to meet new people as you work with others to meet common goals for the organization.
Volunteers often serve as “first readers” for general submissions or contests, but it’s also possible to find nonprofits seeking help with other operations, like grant writing, social media, marketing, and more.
Some of these are internships or fellowships, while others are more flexible volunteer positions. Not only can volunteering be a fun way to network, but if you volunteer as a first reader, you’ll read submissions from poets just like you, and get an inside look into the selection process for that publication. As they say, the best way to become a better writer is to become a better reader!
Some examples of publications that are accepting volunteers are:
Cleaver Magazine
Ploughshares
The Southampton Review
AGNI
Abandon Journal
Newfound
FINAL THOUGHTS
In recent years, I’ve been building a community of poets in my orbit who I love spending time around and learning from—and doing so mostly long-distance while balancing plenty of other priorities. It’s not just doable, but incredibly rewarding!
I used to describe myself as someone who couldn’t network if my life depended on it, but I was wrong.
“Networking” or more accurately, “community building”, is easy when you love what you’re chatting with folks about, and when you genuinely want to connect with and learn from others.
Once you shift your mindset away from the blandness of networking and start building community—attending those open mics (even if you’re not up to performing just yet!), taking workshops, engaging in reading through book clubs, and volunteering—you’ll realize the extent of the poetic brilliance and magic hiding out there.
Then you get into a rhythm, and start finding your people.
Now, go forth and commune!
BACK TO THE RESOURCE CENTER >
Helpful Resource🤓
Here are some of our favorite resources on revision to help get you started with your feedback group sessions:
This article was posted on January 5, 2023. Written by:
