Annie Finch grew up with a tradition of memorizing and reciting metrical poetry on both sides of her family. She first learned prosody and scansion as a Yale undergraduate from the legendary Penelope Laurans. Annie went on to earn an MA in creative writing-poetry (University of Houston), followed by a Ph.D in English Language and Literature (Stanford) with a concentration on Meter and Versification, the first doctoral student at Stanford to pursue such a concentration. Annie’s dissertation, which first set forth her theory of “the metrical code,” was published as The Ghost of Meter: Culture and Prosody in American Free Verse (University of Michigan Press, 1993).
Since then, in addition to seven books of poetry, Annie has published books on meter and poetic form for poets, scholars, and poetry lovers including A Poet’s Ear: A Handbook of Meter and Form, A Poet’s Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry, and The Body of Poetry:Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self and edited or coedited anthologies including An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets on the Diversity of Their Art, A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary Women, After New Formalism: Poets on Form and Narrative, Lofty Dogmas: Poets on Poetry, Multiformalisms: Postmodern Poetics of Form, Villanelles, and Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters. She has received the Robert Fitzgerald Award for her lifetime contribution to the art and craft of Versification.
Annie has taught meter and scansion to poets and poetry-lovers of every background, age, and level of education and poetic experience from kindergarten to post-graduate school. She has lectured on meter and poetry at universities including University of Toronto, Notre Dame, U.C. Berkeley, and Harvard, facilitated at writing conferences including West Chester Poetry Conference, A Room of Her Own, and Poetry by the Sea, taught as a tenured professor of creative writing at Miami University, and served for a decade as Director of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. In addition to awards for her poetry (National Poetry Series Finalist, Yale Series of Younger Poets Finalist, and the Sarasvati Award), she has received the Robert Fitzgerald Award for her lifetime contribution to the art and craft of Versification. With Rozanne Gold and Marianela Medrano, she started the Women, Poetry, and Spirituality retreats at Garrison Institute, and she is the founder of The Magic of Rhythmically Writing Your Life, a transformative holistic system of self-exploration through language rhythm accessible to seekers from all backgrounds.
Since 2020, Annie has taught classes in poetry, scansion, and magic in her own online community, Poetry Witch Community, which is open to all who identify as women. Poetry classes offered elsewhere are shared along with other news in Annie’s Spellsletter. Annie also posts videos teaching aspects of poetry on the Annie Finch Youtube channel. For more opportunities to learn from Annie, please see the website menu.