Teaching guides

Seeds Bursting Open in Fire

A teaching and discussion guide to accompany Last Days by Tamiko Beyer

For young adult and adult students or participants, for use in:

  • Poetry and writing workshops in both traditional classrooms and other settings.

  • Literature, humanities, and social studies classes.

  • Retreats and discussion groups for organizers, activists, and cultural workers.

In this flexible guide, each lesson can be taught on its own, or as a series of classes. 

Download here. You can order Last Days here.

Cover of Last Days by Tamiko Beyer. A painting of two faces looking at each other. The faces are made up of tree branches, flowers, flying birds and running people.

A Teaching & Discussion Guide

for ( ghost gestures ) by Gabrielle Civil (developed by LM Brimmer)

This teaching guide is recommended for the following classes: 

  • Creative Writing

  • Creative Nonfiction & Memoir

  • Performance Art / Performance Studies

  • Black Feminist Literature

  • Gender Studies / Women’s Studies

  • African American / Black Diaspora Studies

  • Atlantic & Caribbean Studies

It includes discussion questions and possible assignments.


Download the guide here. You can purchase ( ghost gestures ) here.

Cover of ( ghoast gestures ). A pixalated image of a woman in silouhette holding a fan

Discussion Guide With Generative Exercises

for GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA by Shanta Lee Gander

This guide for GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues includes discussion questions for the collection, appropriate for reading groups and classrooms. It also offers discussion questions on specific poems and forms in the collection, as well as corresponding generative writing prompts exploring:

  • Memory

  • Language

  • Levels of consciousness

  • Erasure and missing words

Download the guide here. You can purchase GHETTOCLAUSTORPHOBIA here.

On Duality: A Workshop Lesson Plan

To accompany Cleave by Tiana Nobile

This teaching guide offers an in-depth lesson plan for two poems in the collection, “Mother of Cloth,” and “Mother of Wire.” The objectives of the lesson are as follows: 

  • Students will consider the duality of a single relationship through a close reading

    of two poems.

  • Students will brainstorm and begin writing two poems that explore the duality of

    a relationship of their own.

It includes discussion, guided brainstorming, and writing prompts.


Download the guide here. You can purchase CLEAVE here.

Cover are for Cleave. A black and white ink painting of a circle cut in half, with the two halves not quite aligned.