Kim Addonizio

writer musicmaker maquisard

Kim Addonizio is the author of six poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry, The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. She has received fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, two Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Book Award Finalist for her collection Tell Me. Her latest books are Mortal Trash: Poems (W.W. Norton) and a memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress (Penguin). She recently collaborated on a chapbook, The Night Could Go in Either Direction (Slapering Hol Press) with poet Brittany Perham. Addonizio also has two word/music CDs:  Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing (with Susan Browne) and My Black Angel, a companion to My Black Angel: Blues Poems & Portraits, featuring woodcuts by Charles D. Jones. She teaches and performs internationally

All the poems of our lives are not yet made.We hear them crying to us, the wounds, the young and the unborn — we will define that peace, we will live to fight its birth, to build these meanings, to sing these songs.

-Muriel Rykeyser, The Life of Poetry

SATURDAY MORNING POETRY

March 14—April 18 (skip April 4), 9:30—noon Pacific Time/$450

Join a group of serious poets for supportive critique. Application required as I don’t have room for everyone—send me one (1) poem and a brief paragraph about your writing/workshop experience.
email me: addoniziokim@gmail.com

POETIC STRUCTURE & SURPRISE: THE TURNINGS 

March 16—20, Live on Zoom, 9am--11:30am Pacific Time; open to all

This class won’t just inspire you to write—it will also help you shape your poems in order to release the power and energy of your vision. Sure, our poems need heart, mind, fresh metaphors, precise language, ravishing imagery—but they also need structure. How can you shape a poem about events in the past? What are the possibilities of elegy? How do you avoid getting stuck in mere description? We’ll explore a few ways that poems can proceed, and we’ll jump off from discussing some examples to writing our own. We’ll talk about the concept of the turn, and study how poems move so they aren’t only one note, but also take us somewhere new and surprise us. This will be a combination of lecture/discussion and in-class writing that will inspire new work and give you ways to approach new drafts as well as revision.  You’ll finish this intensive session with some new drafts, as well as useful tools to help you shape your material. $500.

Monday The Turn

Tues Concessional Structure, Emblem Structure

Wed Epiphany and Circular Structure

Thurs Elegy

Fri Retrospective and Dejection-Elation

GOING TO AWP IN BALTIMORE? HERE’S MY SCHEDULE

Thurs March 5:

1pm Bookfair book signing with OnlyPoems, Booth #446 book sales & giveaways

7pm  Viva Books, 326 N Charles St reading with Nick Flynn & Pink Tree Press 

 

Friday March 6: 

3:20-4:46 Panel, Twists: New Directions for Teaching Poetic  w/Michael Theune & others, Room 302, Baltimore Convention Center, Level 300

5:30 Reading: Fierce Female Formal Poets  w/Moira Egan, Annie Finch,Ulysses Hotel, (Ash Bar), 2 East Read St, Baltimore

7:30 Reading, AVAM (American Visionary Art Museum), 800 Key Hwy, Baltimore

May 2026: luxury in mexico!


Join me for an intimate writing retreat at a villa in Cabo San Lucas.
https://www.cabopoetryconference.com

Limited to 12 poets

Details are still being worked out, but here’s what’s included:

  • Luxury accommodations in a 6-star oceanfront villa

  • Daily critique workshops and generative prompts

  • One-on-one sessions

  • Transfers to/from San Jose Del Cabo Airport

  • Breakfast and lunch

  • Welcome dinner

  • Yoga classes

  • Guided Walks

  • Tequila Tasting

  • Sunset Cruise

I’ll be co-teaching with Tracey Knapp, author of two fine poetry collections: Mouth and the forthcoming Swerve. Tracey and I taught together at the La Romita School in Italy in 2024. You’ll receive feedback from both of us in every workshop. This is a combination writing retreat and luxury vacation—far from La Romita, where we gathered in a former monastery!—but our commitment as poets and teachers is the same: serious, careful, and personal attention to your work, whatever your level of skill or publication. Again, details are still being worked out, but feel free to email me for more information as the program develops. We’re looking forward to a magical, creative time in a drop-dead gorgeous location.




BOOks for Poets

FINGER EXERCISES FOR POETS, Dorianne Laux (W.W. Norton)

ORDINARY GENIUS: A GUIDE FOR THE POET WITHIN, Kim Addonizio  (W.W. Norton)

THE POET'S COMPANION: A GUIDE TO THE PLEASURES OF WRITING POETRY, Kim Addonizio & Dorianne Laux (W.W. Norton)

IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND: THE POET'S PORTABLE WORKSHOP, Steve Kowit (Tilbury House)

WHY POETRY, Matthew Zapruder (Ecco)

BEST WORDS, BEST ORDER, Stephen Dobyns (St. Martin's)

STRUCTURE AND SURPRISE :ENGAGING POETIC TURNS, ed. Michael Theune (Teachers & Writers)

POETIC METER & POETIC FORM, Paul Fussell (McGraw Hill)

TEXT BOOK: AN INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY LANGUAGE, Robert Scholes, Nancy Comley, Greg Ulmer er (St. Martin's








image.png