Youth Literary Arts Program – Poetry Camp

Youth Literary Arts Program – Poetry Camp is a five-day, inter-arts camp where students respond to daily writing prompts and activities, spend two hours on focused writing each day, and work with poets, spoken word artists, actors, performance coaches, musicians, and visual artists. Each day includes a workshop with a guest artist, a light breakfast, lunch, and a field trip, and students produce various artworks along with a body of new writing that is performed before the community in a student-led poetry reading. At the end of camp, students receive an anthology of their writing and a $100 credit or Woodland Pattern gift card toward books of their choice.

• Ages: 11–17 years old
• Schedule: Five-day camp sessions
• Price: Poetry Camps are offered completely free of charge to students.

Since 1999, Woodland Pattern's Youth Literary Arts Program has worked with Milwaukee Public Schools, the Community Development Grants Administration, and youth-enrichment organizations like UWM Talent Search, and currently serves students from Riverwest Elementary School, Gaenslen School, and Hopkins Lloyd Community School. Woodland Pattern is the administrator of the Milwaukee Youth Poet Laureate program and offers year-round multi-arts education with a strong focus in the literary arts, including after-school arts and literature programming to approximately 300 Milwaukee Public Schools students each year and two inter-arts summer Poetry Camps that serve approximately 60 students over both weeks. Woodland Pattern’s book center holds approximately 25,000 titles of poetry, small-press literature, and ephemera, is home to the largest collection of haiku in North America and the largest Native American section in Wisconsin, and its collection of contemporary poetry is described as the most comprehensive of its kind available for purchase in the U.S.

The organization states that its goals are to promote a lifetime practice of reading and writing, to serve as a forum and resource center for poets and other artists in its region, to encourage collaboration and exchange across the literary, sonic, and visual arts, and to act as a bridge between local and national communities of poets and other artists. One testimonial describes Woodland Pattern as “a welcoming, inviting, and invigorating place to be,” and another describes it as a generator of imagination that connects people to the arts and to each other’s stories of humanity.

Last updated July 28, 2026.