The Craft
The Craft brings you the intimacy of a workshop with the energy of a live event. Hosted by three published poets – Nikki Allen, Lexi Pelle, and Carson Wolfe.
In a landscape ripe with open mics and generative workshops, we offer something different – the opportunity to have your poem live-edited and access to craft conversations as they unfold. No pre-reading, no homework, no lesson plans – we just show up and edit some poems.
Using a fishbowl style of teaching inspired by Megan Falley's online poetry course, Poems That Don’t Suck. We pull names at random from the attendee fishbowl and live-edit these ‘fishes’ before an audience.
The Craft is for you if:
- You love editing poems as much as we do
- You are curious about the editing process and want to learn
- You are ready to receive constructive feedback
If you want to enter your name into the metaphorical fishbowl for a chance to have your poem live-edited, please add your name to our Padlet and arrive at the event with a poem you think is ready for editing, in a file ready to screen share.
Padlet: https://padlet.com/thecraftpoetry/the-fishbowl-jio9c6tln32t13bl
If you’d rather sit back, relax, and observe - that's absolutely welcome! Enjoy the show.
The Hosts:
Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet and Grand Prize Winner of The Disquiet Literary Program (2024). They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University, and their work has appeared in POETRY, The Rumpus, The Common, and Rattle. In 2023, they won New Writing North’s Debut Poetry Prize, received awards from The Aurora Poetry Prize and The Edward Thomas Fellowship, and were longlisted for The Poetry Society’s National Competition. Their second chapbook, Coin Laundry at Midnight, is forthcoming with Button Poetry in spring 2026.
Nikki Allen is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in Muzzle Magazine, Gasconade Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Nailed, and Dodging the Rain among others. She is also the author of the chapbook Hotwire, published by River Dog Press in 2021. She has created and taught writing workshops at women shelters in both Middletown and Columbus, Ohio—she is also a teaching assistant for Megan Falley’s workshops Poems that Don’t Suck, and After the Ode, which has helped jumpstart her editor endeavor. Nikki currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with her partner and daughter.
Lexi Pelle is a poet and editor living in New Jersey. She was the winner of the 2022 Jack McCarthy Book Prize, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a finalist for the Prufer Poetry Prize, Crosswinds Poetry Prize and the Marvin Bell Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, Plume, West Branch, Rattle, 32 Poems, and River Styx.