During my fall semester of 2022 while teaching Poetry Workshop at the University of San Francisco, I reached out to some of the poets whose work I was teaching, Anthony Cody, Su Hwang, Alex Mattraw, and Connie Post. I asked if they would each write a short process note about a new poem or their most recent book which I could share with my class. The students appreciated reading about their process, and I felt that this inspired all of us to reflect on our own process of making poems.
I reached out to rob mclennan who kindly offered to host the Process Note Series on his incredible resource periodicities : a journal of poetry and poetics.
Here is the first one dated October 1, 2022:
Lisa Rosenberg : Process Note #1: “Moon Jellies”
The series focuses primarily on poets who have new or upcoming collections but has also featured a fiction writer:
Process Note #60 : Elizabeth Costello : Childhood, Adulthood, Enchantments, Entanglements
A book of criticism:
Chris Stroffolino : Process Note #46 : In The Here There
An anthology:
Luisa A. Igloria, Aileen Cassinetto and Jeremy S. Hoffman : Process Note #40 : Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States
One in the form of poems:
Micah Ballard : Process Note #19 : PROCESS NOTE POEMS
This is the most recent:
Process Note #65 : Temperance Aghamohammadi : on BATTALION SHAPED GIRL
And just a few from the archives:
Process Note #58 : Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong : for the department of peace
devorah major : Process Note #41
Karla Brundage : Process Note #31 : Blood Lies: Race Trait(or)
Susana Praver-Pérez : Process Note #7 : ON WRITING THE BOOK HURRICANES, LOVE AFFAIRS, AND OTHER DISASTERS
But I hope you’ll check them all out here: Process Note Series.
I’m looking forward to featuring a new author every month for 2026. Thank you for reading!
*caption for photo: My desk-table where you can often find me during the day.
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Maw Shein Win's latest full-length poetry collection
is Percussing the Thinking Jar (Omnidawn, 2024). Her previous
full-length collection Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn,
2020) was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry and
shortlisted for the Golden Poppy Award for Poetry. Her work has recently been
published in The American Poetry Review, The Margins, The
Bangalore Review, and other literary journals. She is the inaugural poet
laureate of El Cerrito, CA, and the 2025 Berkeley Poetry Festival Lifetime
Achievement Awardee. Win's previous collections include Invisible Gifts
and two chapbooks, Ruins of a glittering palace and Score and Bone. She teaches
poetry in the MFA Program at the University of San Francisco and in the Low
Residency MFA Program at Dominican University. Along with Dawn Angelicca
Barcelona and Mary Volmer, she is a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse, a
literary community. mawsheinwin.com
