What are Langston's lessons? An examination of the work of Langston Hughes will help you learn more about America. It will help you explore the tough tapestry of race. His work will make you look into the mirror and see yourself. Are you ready? Who was this man who taught us how to dream? The life and work of Langston Hughes echoes the social transformation of America from the 1920s to the early 1960s. How did he put blues and jazz into his words? What was his secret? Come dance with the dreamer and discover how he changed literature.

This workshop explores what Charles Baudelaire once called the "quality of being present." Through in-depth discussions, exercises and the analysis of exemplary poems, students explore different ways of sharing their observations, effectively and clearly, and discover the specific qualities of their own poetics.

Bobbi Katz, the author of A Rumpus of Rhymes: A Book of Noisy Poems and editor of the award-winning Pocket Poems, will read from her latest book, Once Around the Sun, and be our travel guide as we write and share verse-voyages.

In his talk, Carl Phillips will explore the ways in which Whitman is among the first to stake out forbidden territory (race, masculinity, morality) for American poetry and to find a form that persuasively enacts the poem's content. He will also consider the ways in which Whitman's poems continue to have a contemporary resonance and to illustrate what it has meant and continues to mean, on so many levels, to be American, for better and for worse.

The Poets House Showcase, an awe-inspiring display of all of the poetry published in the United States since last year, opens with a festive reception and the chance to chat with fellow writers and readers about the latest innovations in contemporary verse.

The Poets House Showcase, an awe-inspiring display of all of the poetry published in the United States since last year, opens with a festive reception and the chance to chat with fellow writers and readers about the latest innovations in contemporary verse.