Workshop Descriptions: Break-Out 1(August 17h)
The ABCs of Poetry: Celebrating Diversity with Poetic Form and Language
Sara Santistevan Workshop Leader
In this workshop, participants will discover ways to use other languages or dialects in their poetry to celebrate identity and heritage. After reading and analyzing multi-lingual poetry, participants will write an Abecedarian, a poetic form consisting of 26 lines, each beginning with a letter of the alphabet. Participants are encouraged to experiment with this form in any way that fits their artistic mission—from writing bilingual poetry, to using a different alphabetical system, to challenging the conventions of standard English, and anything in between/beyond.
(Break-out Session #1--August 17th IN PERSON at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)
Writing our Stories to Preserve our Heritage, Educate our Youth, and Engender Change
Juan Flores and Dr. Lupe Frias Workshop Leaders
The goal of the Central Valley Chicana and Chicano Writers’ Collective is to create a structure to support the publication of our stories. With this goal foremost in our mind, this workshop will use freewriting as a technique so that participants discover their stories. We believe everyone has a strong, unique voice and is born with creative genius; that writing as an art form belongs to all people, regardless of economic class or educational level; that the teaching of craft can be done without damage to a writer’s original voice or artistic self-esteem; that a writer is someone who writes. Join us and write your story!
(Break-out Session #1--August 17th IN PERSON at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)
Poems From The Dark Side
Aideed Medina Workshop Leader
This workshop will explore emotions, circumstances, places, and times that can be developed into poems about all things monstrous, actual, or fictional. We are living in the shadow of war and great despair. The human experience is wrought with pain and fear. Through poetry, we can deal with the monstrous: with humor, with truthfulness, or as a work of fiction, as horror. We will look for the monsters lurking in our closets, under the bed, and deep inside of us, and write them into poems to trap the scary things onto the page, if you dare.
(Break-out Session #1--August 17th IN PERSON at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)
The Poetics of Community: Writing in a Restorative Circle
Arnoldo Garcia Workshop Leader
Join and experience a restorative circle where we will explore what it means to create a poetics of community. Community can be a people, a place, a language of languages, a work of art, a practice entangled in utopias and paradise, a poetics of relationships. The circle will be an interactive space using inspirational writings and prompts to generate dialogue, writing, and poetry to approach the communal horizon. The writing circle invites participants to reflect, engage, and revitalize their relationship with community through the practice of poetry. Participants are encouraged to bring a significant artifact to place on the circle centerpiece.
(Break-out Session #1--August 17th IN PERSON at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)
Workshop Descriptions: Break-Out 2 (August 17th)
Radical Re-imaginations of Our World through Poetry
Chloe Gentile-Montgomery Workshop Leader
There is so much destruction and terror in the world right now and it is easy (and natural) to feel overwhelmed. The most powerful tool we have against our oppressor is our minds and our ability to imagine. In this workshop, we will use our imaginations to rebuild a world that is just, humanizing, and empathetic. What would this world look like? By reading examples of radical poetry created by BIPOC activists of the past and present, we will be inspired to create our own visions for a just world through poetry.
(Break-out Session #2--August 17th IN PERSON at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)
Comunicaciones Ancestrales: Una Introducción
Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl Workshop Leader
Por medio de meditaciones y el uso de un oráculo ancestral, participantes aprenderán a abrir y a limpiar sus chakras o "totonalcayos", como se conocen en el mundo de Nahualísmo. Ya alineados los totonalcayos, participantes aprenderán a conectarse con sus ancestros - revelando sabiduría ancestral y escribiendo sobre estos nuevos descubrimientos.
(Break-out Session #2--August 17th IN PERSON at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)
The Healing Power of Words
Kwamise Fletcher Workshop Leader
From releasing your emotions on paper, to expressing yourself through words in a way that you could never imagine doing before, you can begin to heal through poetry and spoken word. Or what if you just need to channel your energy in a different way? There are so many avenues that poetry and being a spoken word artist can take you. Let’s talk about it all. The possibilities are literally endless. Come discover the healing power of spoken & written word art forms and how to use them as therapy for the soul!
(Break-out Session #2--August 17th IN PERSON at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)
Write the Museum! Finding Literary Inspiration Through Art
Adela Najarro Workshop Leader
In this workshop, participants will view the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH) exhibits and then write poems. We will begin by reading ekphrastic poems and viewing the artworks that inspired them. According to the Getty Center: "Ekphrastic poetry has come to be defined as poems written about works of art; however, in ancient. Greece, the term ekphrasis was applied to the skill of describing a thing with vivid detail." After discussing the intersection of art & poetry, participants will be free to roam the MAH and write poems inspired by the museum's collections. We will regroup and share our adventures through the museum with one another.
(Break-out Session #2--August 17th IN PERSON at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History)