Poetry – MA or MFA in Creative Writing

Summer Residencies: Poetry students participate in immersive summer residencies in Gunnison, Colorado. MFA students attend three residencies focused on program preparation, chapbook development, and professional presentation of their work, while MA students attend the first two.

Flexible Online Learning: During the academic year, students complete two six-credit courses each semester through live online workshops and video conferencing, allowing them to pursue a low-residency poetry master’s degree while maintaining professional and personal commitments.

The Culminating Manuscript: MFA students complete a book-length poetry manuscript under the mentorship of a faculty advisor, while MA students complete foundational coursework and residency experiences designed to strengthen poetic craft and creative development.

A Life in Poetry: Through close reading, revision, and exploration across styles, traditions, and forms, students build the craft, discipline, and confidence needed to sustain a lifelong writing practice.

Western’s Ecopoetry Track within the Poetry concentration invites writers to explore the relationship between language, place, ecology, and the more-than-human world. Rooted in close attention to landscape and the living world, this specialized poetry pathway supports writers engaging ecological imagination, environmental change, and questions of justice, community, and belonging.

Drawing on the combined strengths of Western’s Poetry and Nature Writing concentrations, the Ecopoetry Track offers a distinctive opportunity for poets to deepen their craft through place-based writing, environmental literature, and contemporary ecopoetics. Writers from any landscape—urban, rural, or wild—are welcomed into this creative and interdisciplinary literary space.

Students in the Ecopoetry Track move through the Poetry cohort while completing at least two Nature Writing courses, creating a strong foundation in both poetic craft and environmental storytelling. Through close reading, field-based observation, and sustained creative practice, students engage contemporary ecopoetics alongside broader poetic traditions.

The culminating thesis or capstone centers on a cohesive collection of ecopoetry, developed under the mentorship of a practicing ecopoet. This pathway is designed for poets who want to strengthen their relationship to place and create meaningful work that responds to a rapidly changing world.

Students interested in the Ecopoetry Track should apply through the Poetry concentration and indicate their interest in ecopoetics in their application materials.

Students in the Ecopoetry Track will:

• Read widely in contemporary poetry, ecopoetics, and nature writing
• Strengthen their understanding of poetic craft, form, and literary terminology
• Engage diverse literary voices and environmental traditions
• Develop the ability to read critically and analytically as writers
• Situate their own work within poetic, ecological, and literary lineages
• Draft, revise, and complete a cohesive collection of ecopoetry