-
May 2026 Program with Jeffrey Heath
The Breath of the Line
This workshop examines how enjambment, line length, and whitespace can help create meaning. Through close reading of poets like William Carlos Williams, Sharon Olds, Robert Creeley, and others, participants will analyze how line breaks create delay, misdirection, and layered interpretation within a poem. Writing exercises focus on using the line as a unit of tension, where each break produces a temporary meaning that is then revised or complicated by what follows. The goal is to develop sharper control over how a poem unfolds, allowing lines to generate pressure, ambiguity, and surprise.
Join Jeffrey Heath in this upcoming workshop!
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Jeffrey Heath was born in Amarillo, Tx and raised in South Florida. His first chapbook, American Drug Poems (2000) coincided with his time on the poetry slam scene where he represented the city of West Palm Beach at the National Poetry Slam (2001, 2002). Jeffrey’s work has appeared online and in print in several literary and poetry journals, including Eunoia Review, Sky Island Journal, Third Wednesday Magazine, Pictura Journal, Mulskinner Journal, wildscape. Literary Journal, among others; and as a featured poet in Neologism Poetry Journal and on Goodreads. He is the founding editor of January House Literary Journal. His second book, Entropy Loop & Other Poems (2025), was an Amazon bestseller. Jeffrey currently lives in Memphis, TN.
MEETING INFORMATION
This program will be presented at our upcoming PST meeting, to be held May 9, 2026, from 2:00-4:00 pm Eastern / 1:00-3:00 pm Central via Zoom. Members will be provided a link a few days prior. If you are interested in learning more about PST, check out our website. If you’d like to attend our meeting as a guest, contact us at poetrytennessee@gmail.com.
-
Celebrating Spring Means Poetry
As spring shifts shades of gray into a mosaic of greens and pastels, poetry erupts into a national celebration here in the United States. Excitement builds in the weeks leading up to April, as readings, activities, prompts, contests and submission opportunities multiply like the awaking landscape into a succession of poetic celebrations.
Our society, too, honors poetry in celebration in April with our 69th Annual Poetry Festival! Free to members, this event will be held virtually on Zoom. Join us for a focused line-up from the comfort of your home or favorite wifi hangout as Lisa Coffman presents Midrash, Myth Making, Myth Breaking: The Collective Meets the Individual, after which we will reveal the winners of our festival contests with a special reading.
In our March member meeting, Shan Overton shared encyclopedic knowledge and an infectious appreciation of haiku, providing attendees an opportunity to pen their own and begin incorporating haiku mindset and technique into their practice. We will not hold a regular member meeting in April. In May our new program year begins under the guidance of incoming program director, Jeffrey Heath. Get ready for another year of amazing monthly programs!
Poets for Peace is now formally affiliated with the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS), and we have more important news: Sunflowers Rising 2, a Peace Poem Anthology is open for submissions through May 31, 2026. Proceeds benefit a project for a Ukrainian orphanage. Get details. In addition, the 65th annual NFSPS convention will be held in Kansas in late July and is open for registration!
If you haven’t visited our bookstore recently, check out what’s new from our member authors. We love to highlight our member’s books, so if you’re not on our bookstore, let us know and we’ll help you through the process.
Want to help us grow and thrive? Would you like to help us with member communications or social media? contests or the annual festival? connect members in a region? contribute to our blog? support the mission in some other way? Contact us at poetrytennessee@gmail.com to learn more and get involved.
Curious about PST? Join us at a meeting or other activity. Reach out anytime. Peruse our website, monthly newsletters, social media (@poetrysocietyoftennessee on Facebook and Instagram). Ready to join? Find membership information here (online & mail options available). I hope to see you soon at an event—in person or virtual.
With anticipation and delight—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of TennesseeBooks, call for submissions, celebration, community, Festival, festival contests, Jeffrey Heath, Lisa Coffman, National Federation of State Poetry Societies, news, NFSPS, poem, poems, poet, poetry, Poetry Convention, poetry festival, poetry is alive, Poetry Society of Tennessee, poetrycommunity, poets for peace, Shan Overton, student contests, Tennessee Voices Anthology, volunteer, writing -
March 2026 Program with Shan Overton
Into the Life of Things: A Haiku Workshop
In “Tintern Abbey,” William Wordsworth writes, “While with an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, / We see into the life of things.” Writing haiku in community is a wonderful opportunity to see into the life of things together, to pay attention together, and to find out how our shared journey can be an opportunity to magnify our joy and the power of our words. This workshop will include some reflections about the history and form of haiku while providing plenty of time for writing and sharing of our work. Come for the joy of writing and hearing a short form that packs a whole world within its three short lines!
Join Shan Overton in this upcoming workshop!
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Shan Overton hosts a monthly Haiku Workshop for MTSU Write and has also taught poetry and short forms for The Porch in Nashville and The Porch Gathering in North Carolina as well as in junior high, high school, and college classrooms. She has studied poetry and writing with Lori Jakiela, Michelle Stoner, Diane Glancy, Melissa Butler, Jan Beatty, and Ross Gay. Her work has appeared in The Porch Magazine, Belt Magazine, Reading Religion, and Religious Studies News, amongst other publications. Shan currently serves as Dean of Academics at American Baptist College in Nashville, where she lives, writes, walks the dog, and gardens.
MEETING INFORMATION
This program will be presented at our upcoming PST meeting, to be held March 14, 2026, from 2:00-4:00 pm Eastern / 1:00-3:00 pm Central via Zoom. Members will be provided a link a few days prior. If you are interested in learning more about PST, check out our website. If you’d like to attend our meeting as a guest, contact us at poetrytennessee@gmail.com.
-
Debut Poetry from Kayla Nichols
In her debut poetry collection, Kayla Nichols invites us to explore the complexities of human identity. The Stuff of Stars is now available for purchase.
About The Stuff of Stars
The Stuff of Stars takes readers into the very marrow of what it means to be a person in her debut collection. Exploring those things which make, unmake, and rebirth us from a perspective grounded in Appalachian and queer culture and wrestling with the juxtapositions therein. This debut collection addresses themes of generational trauma, patriarchy, climate change, deconstruction, rebuilding through love and community, and more.
Get your copy of The Stuff of Stars here.
About the Author
Kayla Nichols is a writer, advocate, and community builder with deep roots in Appalachia’s Central Highlands. In her poetry, Kayla explores those things which make and unmake us. She weaves stories that inspire and ignite positive change and deeper connection. The Stuff of Stars is her debut collection, and poems from this collection have appeared in Writerly Magazine, the Stories of the Seasons zine produced by the Women in Food and Ag Network, Tennessee Voices Anthology, These Mosaics from Hindman Settlement School, and Exist Otherwise.
-
February 2026 Program with Jeff Hardin
SIX OR SEVEN STRUCTURES FOR SOUND
Alliteration, assonance, rhyme, slant rhyme, echoing sounds…often the sound of words, not necessarily the meaning behind them, can provide an engine for a poem, tossing up echoing sounds ahead of us as we think toward the next thought. Other times, with no other way out, listening toward a certain sound can provide a way to find the ending of a poem, to reach a surprising conclusion. In this workshop, we will discuss six or seven structures for the use of sound in poems, each one a distinct shape, a different logic, a different hope, an ever-unfolding magic.
Join Jeff Hardin in his upcoming workshop. This session will be suitable for all levels of writers.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Jeff Hardin is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently Coming into an Inheritance, Watermark, and A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being. His work has received the Nicholas Roerich Prize, The Donald Justice Prize, and the X. J. Kennedy Prize. The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Image, Swing, Bennington Review, The Laurel Review, and Southern Poetry Review have published his poems. A ninth collection, A Right Devotion, is forthcoming. He teaches at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, TN.
MEETING INFORMATION
This program will be presented at our upcoming PST meeting, to be held February 14, 2026, from 2:00-4:00 pm Eastern / 1:00-3:00 pm Central via Zoom. Members will be provided a link a few days prior. If you are interested in learning more about PST, check out our website. If you’d like to attend our meeting as a guest, contact us at poetrytennessee@gmail.com.
-
Looking Back, Moving Forward
Those early-to-rise bayside days of a temperate Florida gave way in December to the noise and rhythm of machines and medical workers, doctors and nurses sharing a novella of medical terminology, days and nights in hospital rooms, and facing the harsh realities of mortality’s defenselessness against aggressive diseases. The transition of 2025 to 2026 featured my father’s journey to at-home hospice, and the first week of the year set the tone for yet another flavor of Florida days, starting with my father’s passing. I’m so thankful for family, and the way we came together at this time.
I’m thankful for friendship with so many poets, many of whom are society members. To those of you necessarily aware of our situation, I and my family thank you for your expressions of support, prayer, and condolences. I also thank our members who took on the work I had to let go of during this time.
As I write, winter has enveloped swaths of the U.S., including Tennessee. Even this part of Florida has fallen under its cold spell. Our community, however, is spreading warmth. I look forward to returning to our monthly meetings and resuming the Monday evening critique group. As I slowly return to society business, our regular rhythms will catch back. I thank you all for your patience and understanding.
In December, we celebrated your fine voices, and in January, Kory Wells delivered a wonderful workshop! Video replays will be available as soon as possible. Our next meeting will be on Valentine’s Day! I don’t have all the details just yet, but I expect you will love it.
Student contests remain open through February 10, 2026. For members-only contests, sponsor Dr. Diane Clark seeks a poem about “The thing I most regret.” Entries are open February 1 – 15. Winners will be announced in March. In March we take a break from contests. Get contest details here. For our visual artist members: break out your best cover art! We’re working on a call for cover art for our next Tennessee Voices!
If you haven’t visited our bookstore recently, check out what’s new from our member authors (at least one features a debut book from a member!). We love to highlight our member’s books, so if you’re not on our bookstore, let us know and we’ll help you through the process.
We are always looking for volunteers to support our mission. Would you like to … help us with contests or the festival? connect members in a region? write about poetic opportunities? share the latest author to be featured on our bookstore? support the mission in some other way? Contact us at poetrytennessee@gmail.com to learn more and get involved.
Curious about PST? Join us at a meeting or other activity. Reach out anytime. Peruse our website, monthly newsletters, social media (@poetrysocietyoftennessee on Facebook and Instagram). Ready to join? Find membership information here (online & mail options available). I hope to see you soon at an event—in person or virtual.
With gratitude and anticipation—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee -
Debut Poetry from Jenna Ziegler
The Bones Settling (Walnut Street Publishing) is for those adjusting to the home of their body. It is now available for purchase!
About The Bones Settling
The Bones Settling is a lyrical collection that explores grief and hope, longing and love through the lens of living with chronic illness. It is a companion for seasons of loss, nostalgia, and resilience, inviting an honest, unhurried sitting with it all.
Braiding nature and body together—forest and bone, birdsong and vein—these poems paint the beauty and the ache of what it means to be human. May the space between these pages offer a home to both name the dark and still look toward morning.
Visceral yet steeped in hope, The Bones Settling sits with those holding two opposing things at once, with those caught in that liminal space between loss and expectation.
Get your copy of The Bones Settling here.
About the Author
Jenna Ziegler is a poet from the space between the mountains and the sea of Northern California. Her work explores grief and hope, the solace of nature, and what it means to be human. A member of the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild and the Poetry Society of Tennessee, she also writes science fiction and fantasy novels. When she’s not writing or managing her chronic illnesses, she’s playing sand volleyball, hiking with her husband, Tyler, or reading with her cat, Newbert. Learn more and connect with Jenna at jtzieglerauthor.com.
-
January 2026 Program with Kory Wells
ALWAYS AT ODDS: MINING CONTRASTS FOR EFFECTIVE POEMS
Sometimes as writers we gravitate toward our good memories, or those that we think are somehow beautiful: how sweet the honeysuckle; how brilliant the sky. At other times, we can’t tear our focus from all that feels wrong in the world, whether that’s violence, exploitation of people and the environment, snarky memes, or an untimely death.
No matter what turn a poem ultimately takes, we can create more memorable, less predictable writing by elevating our awareness of contrast and ways to incorporate it into our writing. In this session we’ll read work by a few contemporary poets and use those poems as jumping-off places for our own drafts. You’ll leave this session with a draft or two of new poetry or micro-prose.
Join Kory Wells in her upcoming workshop. This session will be suitable for all levels of writers.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Kory Wells is author of two poetry collections, most recently Sugar Fix from Terrapin Books. A former poet laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, she founded and directs Poetry in the Boro, a reading and open mic series now in its tenth year. Her writing has been featured on The Slowdown from American Public Media, won Blue Earth Review’s Flash Creative Nonfiction Contest, and appears in Cutleaf, Salvation South, The Strategic Poet, and elsewhere. After her first career in software development, Kory nurtures community through storytelling, arts initiatives, and as a mentor to writers through the from-home creative writing program MTSU Write. Find her on Instagram or Facebook as @tnpoet.
Meeting Information
This program will be presented at our upcoming PST meeting, to be held January 10, 2026, from 2:00-4:00 pm Eastern / 1:00-3:00 pm Central via Zoom. Members will be provided a link a few days prior. If you are interested in learning more about PST, check out our website. If you’d like to attend our meeting as a guest, contact us at poetrytennessee@gmail.com.
PST News
Poetry Society of Tennessee 