Workshops with Hoa Nguyen
Also called “Reading and Writing [name of poet] with Hoa Nguyen”, this poetry workshop was a reading-and-writing based format established by Hoa Nguyen in 1998. Hoa designed these to be affordable, generative, and a place to find community while engaging in a large collection of a poet’s work. Hoa taught these deep dive workshops two to three times a year in an increasingly popular series, continuously, for twenty-two incredible years.
Below you can see a partial list of courses that Hoa offered over the years. You will also see, under current workshops, a special offering: Tarot Maximus . Hosted in a Teachable format, Tarot Maximus is a condensed tarot course with generative prompts designed around the tarot and The Maximus Poems. This four part series shares Hoa’s long study of tarot and her deep knowledge of this epic by Charles Olson along with tarot-and-Maximus-based poetry prompts and supplemental materials. Tarot Maximus , recorded on Zoom in 2021, was a particularly special course as it meant that so many of the poet-participants who have studied poetry with Hoa could join her for this workshop.
The pandemic introduced numerous changes, including heightened responsibilities in university teaching roles. Since 2020, Hoa has served as graduate faculty and Co-Chair of the discipline of Writing at the Milton Avery School for Fine Arts at Bard College and beginning July 2023 teaches poetry and creative writing as an Assistant Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Future workshops are possible, perhaps as a pop-up experience to celebrate an author’s book, but none are currently planned.
What People Are Saying
“Hoa's workshops have reinvigorated my writing practice. Her imaginative prompts both engage with the texts that are the focus of each workshop wand propel my own work in new directions. The supplemental readings and weekly call/podcast deepen my engagement as both a reader and writer of poems, while preserving a physical and mental sense of space that allows me to feel I am fully participating in the test and the workshop, even in the middle of an otherwise busy "regular" life."
“I'm loving loving loving the chance to deeply explore a poet I've loved in the past through your incitements, research, and sense of play. Thank you!”
“So many of the prompts, provocations, rituals, and questions from your class fed a deep ritual meaning for me; I was and am so grateful.”
“Legendary.”
“Hoa brings a community of poets together and changes the way we read and write. Following her process, my poetry has taken giant leaps. Her sensitive response to my work has been as valuable as her classes.”
“I'm hooked on Hoa's workshops. They keep my senses primed and pushing into new territory. And the resulting poems have landed themselves in literary journals I am so proud to be a part of.”
“Your workshop was generative and juicy for me... I'm still working my way through the prompts and am deep into this new project/query as a result of the class. Thank you!”
Current Workshops
Tarot Maximus
An online tarot workshop for writers: learning tarot and making poems in response to the Maximus Poems by Charles Olson.
In this workshop, we will read and write through One with Others by C.D. Wright.