Join us on Thursday, June 18th 2026, at 7 PM Eastern Time for a workshop with writer Matthew Buxton! This workshop is held in partnership with Strathmore.
The Poet has always acted as an intermediary between human and divine: Homer invoking the muses to speak through him; William Blake's visions of angels and prophets; George Herbert's employment as "God's Secretary." But what does this look like in a world where poets are called to write past mysticism?
In this workshop, we will explore how contemporary poets write through belief rather than simply from it. Using poems such as Carl Phillips’s “Neon,” we will examine how writers engage the language of myth, divinity, and spiritual authority while also questioning, destabilizing, or reimagining it. How can poetry hold both reverence and skepticism? How can the sacred persist inside disillusionment?
What at Least You've Called a God: Writing As/Through Belief
A Creative Writing Workshop with Matthew Buxton.
This workshop will be recorded and a link to the recorded version is available for registered participants only. The recorded version is edited for participant privacy and focuses on the instructor’s lessons. Our partners at Strathmore want these workshops to be as accessible as possible, so they are priced as “pay what you can.” You will be prompted to enter an amount of your choice when you register. (If you are registering for free, please enter $0.) If you are able to pay for these workshops, every dollar goes to support Strathmore’s education programs.
NOTE: This is a fully online event. When you register, your ticket email from tickets@strathmore.org will include a seat number but remember that this is a virtual-only experience. The workshop takes place on Zoom, and you’ll receive the access link via email from strathmore@strathmore.org at approximately 4 PM Eastern Time on the day of the event. Click to view samples of the ticket email and the zoom link email for Strathmore events.
About the Facilitator
Matthew Buxton is a queer writer originally from Salt Lake City. His work appears or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, Chicago Review, swamp pink, New Delta Review, Bat City Review, Rhino Poetry, Tupelo Press, The Spectacle, & Change, Court Green, Frozen Sea, which nominated him for a Pushcart Prize, and others. He holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan, and his work has been recognized by the Fine Arts Work Center and the Vermont Studio Center. He now lives and teaches in Chicago. Find Matthew on Instagram at @matthew_buxton. His Chapbook, EXALTATION: A Space Opera is available from Bottlecap Press
This program is made possible in part through the Regional Arts Discretionary Fund of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the Wallace Foundation.
