Finding the Fire: Revising and Revisioning the Poem

Literary Masters Lecture Series
Tue, Aug 11 & 18
6:30-8pm CT via Zoom
Nonmember: $90; Member: $75; Student/Educ/Mil: $63

Registration info coming soon.

Want to turn your cold first draft into a hot work of literary art?  Your first draft is the fodder. Your revision process applies the heat. The outcome is one blazing poem. Join former San Antonio and Texas poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero for a workshop where she walks us through her process for refining her poems.

In this two-part lecture, Laurie Ann Guerrero will offer insight into her process of revising and revisioning poems—listening for urgency, clarifying imagery, and taking creative risks. Participants will learn her revision sequence and then participants will each workshop one short poem of their own in an atmosphere of generous, serious attention. Participants are encouraged to bring a poem (no longer than one page) to revise on the spot.

This lecture is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.

In this lecture, students will:

• Learn revision techniques that re-envision their work
• Revise one piece of their own written work on the spot
• Leave this lecture with revision tools that can be used at home

Poet, essayist, and visual artist, Laurie Ann Guerrero was born and raised in the Southside of San Antonio and is the author of REDWORK, winner of the 2025 Autumn House Poetry Award, forthcoming in October 2026. Poet Laureate of San Antonio (2014-16) and Texas (2016-2017), her award-winning collections, along with a volume of new & selected poems, include Babies under the Skin (Panhandler 2008), A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying (University of Notre Dame Press 2013), A Crown for Gumecindo (Aztlan Libre Press 2015), and I Have Eaten the Rattlesnake: New & Selected Poems (TCU Press 2021). Guerrero holds degrees from Smith College and Drew University. She is an Associate Professor and the Writer-in-Residence at Texas A&M University-San Antonio where she teaches writing, cultural, and gender studies. She is currently at work on a novel.