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home | Power of Words 2009
The Power of Words Conference
Liberation, Transformation & Celebration
Through the Spoken, Written & Sung Word
September 4-7, 2009 at Goddard College, Plainfield, VT.
Explore how we can use our words — written, spoken or sung — to make community, deepen healing, witness one another, wake ourselv es up, and foster empowerment and transformation. Organized by the Transformative Language Network, and founded by Goddard College, this conference features experiential workshops on a wide range of the expressive language arts and right livelihood, performances, open readings, and celebrations. Make community with others who share your passion. Keynote presenters for the 2009 conference include:
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Kayhan Irani, performer of the Theatre of the Oppressed and creator of Artivista, an organization that combines art and activism as a form of political expression and engagement
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John Fox, poet, author, poetry therapist, and founder of Poetic Medicine, and author of Poetic Medicine and Finding What You Didn't Lose.
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Lewis Mehl Medrona, author of Coyote Medicine, Native American physician and psychiatrist and professor of family psychiatry who calls himself a post-modern, semi-urban neo-shaman.
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Dovie Thomason, award-winning Native American storyteller, recording artist and author
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Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, founder of Transformative Languages Arts, and award-winning author of several books including Write Where You Are and Lot’s Wife, who will be debuting her memoir, The Sky Begins at Your Feet.
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Sherry Reiter, poetry therapy pioneer and author of Writing Away the Demons: Stories of Creative Coping Through Transformative Writing will present a workshop with her co-authors.
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Callid Keefe & Kristina Perry, facilitators-in-residence and writers on Theopoetics and the Quaker meeting tradition.
- Terry Hauptman, artist-in-residence, painter and poet, and author of On Hearing Thunder, Rattle, and Masquerading in Clover.
Narrative Medicine: The Kaiser-Permanente Journal is underwriting the narrative medicine track of this conference, and bringing in three physicians to present special workshops on how the stories we tell ourselves, and our culture tells us about how health and illness can be examined and revised to bring us greater meaning and richer lives. There will also be a narrative medicine panel: presentations by pioneers in narrative medicine; John Fox and Lewis Mehl-Medrona; a book release for Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg's narrative medicine memoir; and a showing of the film, Healing Words: Poetry and Medicine.
Right Livelihood: The Right Livelihood track will run throughout the conference, including workshops on making a living, listening to callings, creating effective business plans, self-care, and related topics -- all to be presented by experts in the field.
Social Change: The TLA Network is committed to social change, social justice and transformative language arts activism. The social change track includes workshops on community building for women of color, reclaiming race, socially conscious TLA, dialogues on creating peace during wartime, and developing outreach materials for social change. Our facilitators-in-residence are also available during office hours to discuss group process and consensus building for creating community.
“A wide open door into the multiple layers of words and their healing nature.” – Marianela Medrano-Marra, Ph.D., writer and psychotherapist
“Rarely have I felt so present and full in each and every moment...from the beginning to the end, I was moved, inspired, challenged, and changed. I did, indeed, leave differently than I had arrived.” -- Embrya deShango, spoken word performer, Cincinnati
Read about TLA and TLA in action.
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