Class Description
How do our life experiences—sacred, mundane, and profane—shape our identity, and live within our bodies?
In the way that our bodies carry our life experiences, poetry can be a vehicle for exploring our relationship to them. In this workshop, we will experiment with the ways craft tools like voice, imagery, point of view, language and form support the self-exploration that gives rise to our unique, embodied voice. Through our personal poetry, we can deepen our understanding and appreciation of the diversity and complexity within us, and in those around us. From this place, our poetry becomes part of a dialogue within a larger collective. We will explore how our life experiences related to race, gender identity, war, trauma, and addiction can be explored through poetry, and held by our poems. This class will include a focus on craft, provide generative writing prompts, poem readings, and group discussion. We’ll also engage in some in-class workshopping. By the end, you will have generated a few beginnings of new poems, deepened your craft knowledge, explored new ways of approaching your poetry, and will inhabit your writing life in renewed ways.
Please bring a draft of a body/identity themed poem you are currently working on.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. About 15 minutes before your class is scheduled to begin, you'll receive an email from your instructor with a link to join the class meeting!
Zoom Participation:
Students are not required to turn their camera on, but are encouraged to participate any way they feel comfortable through functions such as the live chat, emoji reactions, and unmuting the microphone. Learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
We ask that instructors enable closed captioning and send a transcript of the session after class. You can also enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting. If your instructor forgets to send the transcript, just send ’em an email!