Intensive Weekly Workshop with Natasha Hakimi Zapata

New week, new work! Responding to generative guidance from the finest of prompts with Natasha Hakimi Zapata.

* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *

In this new course, led by Natasha Hakimi Zapata, intermediate writers will respond to an inspiring prompt based on contemporary poets’ work and pen a completely new poem weekly. We will read work by poets – both familiar and unfamiliar – such as Seamus Heaney, Gabrielle Bates, Franz Wright, Megan Fernandes, Sam Sax, Raymond Antrobus, Ada Limón, and many others, in order to get under the skin of the most memorable poems out there right now. And then, inspired by them and a tailored prompt, write, write, write!

This intensive course is suitable for poets who want to improve their skills, explore new forms, themes, and language, and craft fresh drafts on a weekly basis. Each week, after delving into a generative prompt, we will focus on workshopping your own writing; we will read and discuss your poems-in-progress, developing familiarity with each other’s work and offering detailed feedback with the aim of moving your writing forward, all the while establishing a community of poets we hope you can count on for years to come.

Through this fast-paced, 10-week workshop, you will be encouraged to continue constructing an independent voice and develop confidence in shaping your work, always with the shared goal of helping your own and your peers’ poetry evolve. While we won’t workshop every draft, every week, you will come out of this 10-week course with 10 new drafts, plenty of feedback for future revisions, and a vibrant poetic community to help support your writing and polish new work for years to come.

10 weekly Zoom sessions on on Thursdays, 5.30–7.30pm (BST), starts 8 October 2026.

Concessions & Accessibility

To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected]. Conditions of eligibility are detailed here. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].

What to Expect

Please check the left hand side of this page for information on how this course works in practice, under the heading ‘Course Style‘. If you’re unsure as to what any of the terms there mean, or if this course is a good fit for you, please visit our What to Expect page which includes some further information on how our courses function.

Image credit: @didsss

About Natasha Hakimi Zapata View Profile

Natasha Hakimi Zapata is a poet, journalist, university lecturer, and literary translator whose first non-fiction book, Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America From Around the Globe, is out now with The New Press. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Los Angeles Review of Books, In These Times, and elsewhere, and she has received numerous awards for her creative writing, journalism, and literary criticism. In 2016, Literal Publishing released full-length bilingual editions of her translations of Alicia Borinsky’s My Husband’s Woman and Liliana Lukin’s Theater of Operations poetry collections. She holds a Creative Writing M.F.A. from Boston University and B.A.’s in Spanish and in English with a creative writing concentration from the University of California, Los Angeles. Follow her on Instagram at @natashahakimizapata or Twitter/X at @natashakimiz.

"Natasha displayed a broad and deep knowledge of her subject and displays great skill in supporting her students."

- Friday Workshop Spring 2026 Survey Response

The Poetry School