SHAPING & BUILDING A COHESIVE POETRY MANUSCRIPT ✦ Carey Salerno

What story is your manuscript trying to tell—and how can you help it articulate that more clearly?

This workshop invites poets with books-in-progress to take an overarching view and see the singular evolution of their manuscript structures. Together, we’ll identify the kinds of poems currently present, uncover what might be missing, and explore how sequence and composition can transform a collection into a resonant, unified whole. Through guided discussion and generative exercises, participants will:

• Assess the current shape and trajectory of their manuscript
• Experiment with poem order to strengthen flow
• Identify key poems and interpret their placement for maximum impact
• Generate new pieces that respond to and expand the manuscript’s existing conversations

By the end of this workshop, poets will leave with a deeper understanding of their manuscript’s architecture, a clearer sense of its possibilities, and tangible strategies for moving it toward completion.

Just yourself!

Carey Salerno serves as the executive director & publisher of Alice James Books where she has been dedicated to broadening the spectrum of the American poetic voice since 2008. She is the author of The Hungriest Stars (2025), Tributary (2021), Shelter (2009), and a co-editor of Lit From Inside: 40 Years of Poetry from Alice James Books (2013). She is the recipient of a 2025 Pushcart Prize and a 2025 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Council. Salerno serves as co-chair for LitNet: The Literary Network and teaches publishing arts and poetry writing for the University of Maine.