Welcome to Poetry Witch Community

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                                       Meter, Magic, Craft, and Rhythm

Poetry Witch Community brings together women & gender-nonconforming poets, poetry lovers, and spiritual seekers from around the world to practice poetry, meter, and magic. While learning the ancient craft of meters, we weave webs of connection and empowerment, exploring the rhythmic languages of poetry and life so we can learn to craft our lives and words in more joyfully powerful ways.  .  . 

Poetry Witch was founded by poet & writer Annie Finch in 2020. In 2025 Sanya Khurana joined the community as co-director, enriching it with the benefits of an international partnership across generations.

            FIND YOUR RHYTHMS AMONG THE POETESSES & PRIESTESSES!

This community is for you if you are  . . .

—A poet who's hungry to learn ALL the secrets of your art--the skills MFA programs don't know how to teach you!--in the community designed by Annie Finch, legendary metrical poet, author of A Poet's Craft, winner of the Robert Fitzgerald Award for Versification, called the "Queen of Meter" by Toi Derricotte.

—A healer, artist, student, or practitioner ready to explore the rhythmical knowledge that's been central to the powers of shamans, wisewomen, and medicine people across the world since matriarchal days.

—A poetry-lover curious about what makes great poetry tick--how it manages to thrill you in body , heart, and spirit as well as mind . . .

— A seeker ready to find the rhythms of meaning, harmony, and beauty in your words, your life,  and the life of your community.  

WELCOME TO THE MAGIC!

Poetry Witch Community is a private, free international online community open to all women and gender nonconforming people who love magic and/or poetry. Community members are eligible to purchase a monthly membership in our central learning space, the Spiral of Meters.

ABOUT THE SPIRAL OF METERS

The Spiral of Meters is a community of independent co-learners dedicated to enchanting our lives and words through the art and craft of poetic Meters. Rather than privileging any one meter, the Spiral focuses on the full spectrum of meters, introduing a different meter or metrical strategy each month for nine months. Annie has designed the Spiral to teach meters holistically through a cyclical dance combining creative writing and scansion. The Spiral is non-hierarchical; every class and gathering is open to all levels of experience, and Spiralers learn from and teach each other. For those seeking deeper study, the Spiral offers free access to special events including Annie's special Solstice poetry lectures and is synced with the meters of Annie's monthly Formal Feeling Poetry Workshop.

To join PWC if you are a woman or gender-nonconforming, click "Request to Join" above.

Once you have joined, you will see the link with info about the Spiral of Meters among the offerings in the menu at left.

Learn more about this magical community! We are  . . .

• A passionate space where liberation, creativity, diversity, and truth are paramount and the First Law of Witchcraft is honored: “if it harms none, do as you will”
• A learning community where you can join the Spiral of Meters to gain a-maze-ing tools for poetry, meter, scansion--and the powers of ritual and self-transformation they carry!
• A grounding, strengthening, gifting space where we help, teach, and share with each other throughout the five directions of Will, Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit
• An accepting space for all who identify as women or gender-nonconforming, and a kind, re-membering space where truthful, challenging conversations safely hark to the Second Law of Witchcraft: “always assume the other person is doing their best”
• A magical space where Craft is honored as sacred, where Grammar dis-covers our Glamour, where skill and attention become the roots of art and action, and Webs of wise new Ways spin stronger . . .

Poetesses, Priestesses, & other Magical Beings who Heed this call are invited to weave your voice and vision into our cannily cunning, rhythmically inspired, wildly wise community! 

To join PWC if you are a woman or gender-nonconforming, click "Request to Join" above.

Once you have joined, you will see the link with info about the Spiral of Meters among the offerings in the menu at left.

Love,

Annie & Sanya

ABOUT ANNIE AND SANYA 

Annie Finch was born near New York City on Halloween 1956, of Celtic and Norse lineage, She grew up absorbing the traditions of earth-centered spirituality and poetic rhythm. As a Yale undergraduate, she studied scansion and meter with Penelope Laurans, then went on to earn an MA in creative writing-poetry (University of Houston), writing verse drama under the supervision of Ntozake Shange. In 1990 she earned a Ph.D from Stanford in English Language and Literature, the first doctoral student there with a Concentration on Meter and Versification. Her dissertation, which first set forth her ideas about meter and meaning, was published as The Ghost of Meter: Culture and Prosody in American Free Verse (University of Michigan Press, 1993).

Since then, Annie has published seven books of award-winning poetry including Eve (finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets),  Calendars (finalist for the National Poetry Series, shortlisted for the Foreword Book of the Year Award), Among the Goddesses (awarded the Sarasvati Award for Poetry), Spells: New and Selected Poems, and The Poetry Witch Little Book of Spells.  Her poems have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Paris Review, and The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century American Poetry and her music and theater collaborations have been produced at venues including Carnegie Hall and American Opera Projects. Her work has bee published in nine languages and performed on four continents.

Annie has taught poetry at numerous colleges including Stanford, MIami University, where she taught on the graduate creative writing faculty, and the Stonecoast MFA program in Creative Writing in Maine, where she served for a decade as Director and Full Professor.   Many of her books about poetry are used in classrooms, especially A Poet’s Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry, Villanelles, and Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters. She is the winner of the Arlt Prize for Literary Criticism and the Robert Fitzgerald Award for lifetime contribution to the art and craft of Versification. 

In addition to her teaching within Poetesses & Priestesses Community, Annie offers other online and in-person teachings which you can find in her newsletter. Poetesses & Priestesses is the most accessible place to find her on a regular basis, and we hope you will join her there!

Sanya Khurana is from Delhi, India. She wears many hats. She is working with Annie to build an app that performs metrical scansion of poems. She is also a technologist: after coding full-time at Adobe, she now combines technical skill and creative vision to build software. She currently works as a Fractional CTO, helping individuals and businesses solve technology problems. Her work in tech has earned recognition in the form of scholarships and awards from Facebook, Google and the Grace Hopper Celebration for her contributions to women in tech.

Beyond technology, Sanya is a poet, author, singer and someone who believes deeply in the power of words to question, heal, and transform. 

She co-founded and led for ten years the Lean In India Network, India’s branch of the global women-empowerment initiative launched by Sheryl Sandberg. Through that network she helped build peer-mentoring communities that support women’s ambitions across the country. She has delivered a TEDx talk focused on women’s empowerment, further amplifying conversations around agency and ambition.

Sanya has authored two books: One Action – Towards Women’s Dreams and Ambitions and Dark Clouds: A Poetic Journey Through Depression. In One Action, she explores the barriers women face — from societal expectations to self-doubt — and encourages action, community, and self-belief. 

She has also worked on music, including singing in music videos, and she has had an inclination toward Hindustani classical music since childhood.

In all these roles — technologist, writer, singer, mentor — Sanya combines logic with empathy and creativity. Her journey reflects a commitment to empowering others and using her talents to build, whether that means software, supportive communities, or poetry that resonates.

To join Poetry Witch Community, please click "Request to Join" above.

Note to Other Genders:

While Poetry Witch Community is a space for women and gender nonconforming people, visitors of all genders are invited to subscribe to Annie's 5 Directions Newsletter and Poetess Priestess Substack blog, explore her books, videos, and Spiral of Poems, and find her on Youtube and  Instagram--and to connect with Sanya Khurana and her poetry on Linkedin and Instagram. We would love to meet you there!  We appreciate your support and understanding of the importance of women's spaces!

Love, Annie and Sanya