Five weeks. Five poems. We'll look at what makes them tick, and write our own versions. Break that writer's block. Let's get started.

Let's crack poems open and see them for their parts. W.D. Snodgrass took 101 acclaimed poems and did just that: he re-wrote them into what he called De/Compositions--or, good poems gone wrong. Snodgrass recast each poem, line-by-line, until the poem diverged into another beast entirely. His versions document how artistic choices accumulate to a transcendent final product. We'll take a similar tack. Each week, you'll tackle a poem, render your own version, and share. Our versions will question each choice the poet made, at the same time we’ll direct energies into making the poems "ours."