HeyJaredThe Poetry Coach with Kelly Grace Thomas
MFA-level guidance to rapidly improve craft, create intentional habits, and finally write the poems only you can write.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 13
- Latest publication
- Sep 24, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 28, 2026
Latest issues
Why Great Poems Aren’t Enough (opens the original)
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Here’s the real talk I wish someone told me years ago. You can write excellent poems and still end up with a book no one will publish.I have seen it happen so many times. Poets spend decades (and thousands on MFAs and workshops) trying to write stronger poems. The language is stunning, the imagery arresting, every poem can stand on its own.And yet, they submit the book and five poems in (yes, that early); the editor or contest judge stops reading.So many of us focus on the craft of the poem, but
[CORRECTION] REPLAY: Jillian Stacia — Inside the Manuscript (opens the original)
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Last night we were with the incredible, electric for Inside the Manuscript, and it felt like a full-circle moment. Jillian and I first worked together through coaching while she was shaping Set the Bone—and now her debut collection is out in the world, with readers absolutely raving about it.And honestly, this is the work I love most: helping a poet step back from the individual poems, see the larger story taking shape, and make the choices that bring a collection fully into focus.Jillian shared
REPLAY: Jillian Stacia: Inside the Manuscript (opens the original)
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Last night we were with the incredible, electric for Inside the Manuscript, and it felt like a full-circle moment. Jillian and I first worked together through coaching while she was shaping Set the Bone—and now her debut collection is out in the world, with readers absolutely raving about it.And honestly, this is the work I love most: helping a poet step back from the individual poems, see the larger story taking shape, and make the choices that bring a colle
What MFAs & Workshops Don’t Teach You (opens the original)
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There are so many ways to become a better writer—workshops, classes, books, conferences, retreats. I’ve done most of them myself, and I’ve taught many of them, too. They can be incredible. But there’s one thing they can’t give you: someone who knows your work deeply enough to help you figure out exactly what you need next.You don’t need more writing advice. You need the right advice for YOUR writing. Your work deserves someone’s full 1:1 attention. ❤️Here are a few ways poetry coaching differs f
Write Like Jillian Stacia (opens the original)
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The poems I love most aren’t always the ones that impress me while I’m reading them. They’re the ones that follow me afterward—the ones I’m still thinking about three days later. ’s poems do this beautifully. Her subjects are enormous—generational trauma, anxiety, motherhood, medication, inheritance—but she rarely announces their enormity. Instead, she gives us a fractured leg, a garage door, a pharmacy, a broken piano.The biggest emotional truths often arrive through the smallest doors.<a class
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