This chapter addresses the transformative use of the creative writing workshop as pedagogical method in undergraduate, graduate, and community-based creative nonfiction classes.

Thomas Sayers Ellis, assistant professor of creative writing at New York's Sarah Lawrence College, is one of many scholars fighting for the soul of Black poetry, a struggle that takes place largely off-campus. Unless one is accepted into a top-level graduate poetry program, such as Boston University's program or the Iowa Writing Workshop, a poet's…