Megan Nichols

Being named a Brooklyn Poets Fellow for Spring 2022 and taking Gregory Crosby’s class on the sonnet was been such a joy. I am so grateful for this experience. The other writers in my class were incredibly talented and kind. Gregory is a fantastic teacher and generous reader. My writing has absolutely improved and most importantly, I know have the sonnet in my writer’s tool kit – a form that I’m surprised to have fallen for.

I previously took Gabrielle Bates’ class “Image, Sound, Syntax, and the Line” with Hugo House and that too provided a fundamental shift in my writing. I wrote my first “After” poems in the class, my first contrapuntal, plus some of my favorite poems to date. Gabrielle is an amazing teacher but that was no surprise as the bulk of my poetry “education” is built atop the podcast she co-hosts, The Poet Salon.

Both classes were extremely generative for me and I consider them to be pivotal moments in my “poetry timeline”. They also remind me of how inspiring (and necessary) conversation and community is when it comes to writing (and everything else in life).

I’m sad to have finished The Sonnet but I’m also excited (and nervous, nervous) to be reading in the Workshop Showcase on May 16th. I’ve not read outside of private, small Zoom meetings so this will be new. Mostly I’m excited to listen to the other poet’s read and to find out what everyone’s been working on this spring.