The Brooklyn Poets Mentorship Program provides developing writers with twelve months of immersive training in becoming a poet under the sustained guidance of a mentor. Within the comfort of a small cohort, the twelve students selected for the program will embark on a curriculum of intensive study over the course of 2025—conducted completely online—leading to a certificate of training. This will include a series of core workshops and craft labs with veteran Brooklyn Poets teacher and 2018–20 Stegner Fellow Jay Deshpande, in addition to workshops and craft labs with other Brooklyn Poets teachers and guest speakers. Through this course of study, students will

• generate, workshop, revise and edit new work
• develop a manuscript of poems
• strengthen their literacy in contemporary poetry and multiple literary traditions
• deepen and broaden their sense of craft by working with multiple teachers
• build creative support networks with their peers through workshops and reading groups
• learn about pathways to publication and other professional opportunities and how best to advocate for their work.

Most importantly, students will develop their individual voices in focused, one-on-one mentorship sessions with Deshpande throughout the year.

At the core of the Brooklyn Poets Mentorship Program is the belief that individual writers find their voices most effectively when provided with consistent, invested relationships, both with a mentor and with peers. Sustained, individualized mentorship in particular is often conspicuously absent from MFA programs. Our program provides poets with all the necessary elements to find their footing in the professional literary world—one of the most difficult things for poets to navigate upon starting out. We believe that after graduating our students will be ready to publish their work, connect with other poets and build community, and continue evolving as writers making meaningful work in the world.