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• Changing the World with Words: TLA Foundations // with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

  • Start
    15 March 2023
  •  
    (EDT)
  • End
    25 April 2023
  •  
    (EDT)
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    9

  Registration is closed

  
  

  This thorough introduction to Transformative Language Arts (TLA) encompasses the personal and the global, the contemporary and the historic, and how TLA can be practiced through writing, storytelling, performance, song, and collaborative, expressive and integrated arts. We will also explore ethics and considerations for practicing TLA through facilitation, coaching, teaching, and more, with special attention to diversity and inclusion when it comes to bringing more voices to the table.

  Each week includes short readings, a lively discussion, and invigorating writing prompts to help you articulate more of your own TLA callings. The weekly writing prompts and pertinent discussion questions give you room to work and play through what you know, are coming to know, and how this knowledge cross-pollinates with what you do and who you are. Websites, videos and/or podcasts, and essays to engage with, bring you face to face with you real-life expressions of TLA as this field, profession, and calling grows around the world.

  This class is also required for TLA Foundations Certification.
  
  

  To order a copy of The Power of Words: A TLA Reader (required text for class), please scroll down. 

  Week by Week
  

  Week One: TLA History, Fields, and Traditions

  An overview of theory and practice, including genres, arts and community practices, ethics, and your own values informing your TLA. Explore TLA in many forms–from poetry therapy to social change theater to healing storytelling–and share what ignites your soul and work. We’ll also look at how we see ourselves in our TLA work and callings and how we’re likely to seen in various communities, and the essential role of self-care in our TLA work and as core to TLA practice.
  

  Week Two: TLA in Service: Health, Healing, Spirituality, and Personal Growth.
  

  We’ll explore how TLA can help people find their way home through health or emotional crises or wounds, spiritual callings, and many manner of personal growth. Starting with the personal, and recognizing how the personal is political, we look at ways in which TLA can foster health, healing, and homecoming, and also some of our cultural biases and blindnesses about such directions. Some of this week’s resources will help us see more of the breadth and depth in how TLA can be effective in various religious and spiritual traditions, mainstream and holistic healing practice, and home-grown and psychological counseling as well as for people living with disabilities or serious illnesses.
  

  Week Three: TLA as Catalyst: Community, Culture, History, and Social Change.
  

  We’ll look at TLA in relation to community-building, culture-shifting, history-revisioning, and social change, and particularly explore what it means and can mean to be part of various communities. To better understand the time and place where we live now, we’ll also explore TLA as a vehicle for diversity and inclusion, including addressing oppression, marginalization, privilege, and access. Additionally, we’ll look at what it means to practice TLA in ways that foster a community ethic of care (as well as supporting individual self-care).
  

  Week Four: TLA & Right Livelihood: Ways to Make a Living and a Life.
  

  What are our callings for how we make a living and how we live a life? We’ll dive into how TLA intersects with our life’s work (whether that work relates to a paycheck, volunteering, creating art or writing, or other aspects of our life), and develop plans for where we’re led to go. We’ll draw from the Buddhist roots of the term “Right Livelihood” to better understand how we can forge good work that makes a positive contribution to our communities and lives.
  

  Week Five: TLA in Action: Facilitation, Consulting, Collaboration, Coaching, and More.
  

  Looking at the ethics and facilitation of our work, art, and community involvement, we’ll discuss and write about the specific forms of TLA we do and want to do, and how strong facilitation of TLA – whether in the form of community meetings, writing workshops, collaborative storytelling or theater projects, or one-on-one coaching – requires us to lifelong students of the art of facilitation.
  

  Week Six: TLA and You: Plans, Visions, and Maps.
  

  Deepening our plans for the work, art, and community-making ahead, we’ll clarify what’s right for us to pursue next, what support and tools we need along the way, and the future envision. This week will focus on what resources and pathways are around us, and how to best discern our own best ways to move forward.
  

  
  

  Who Should Take This Class

  This class is ideal for a wide variety of people, including professionals who want to infuse TLA into their teaching, counseling, pastoral work, arts collaboration, and community work; community leadres and activists seeking to bring more voice and vision to the table in their communities; and writers, storytellers, performers and other artists who want to develop their facilitation of writing, songwriting, expressive arts, drama therapy and community theater, collaborative arts, storytelling, and integrated arts; and perspective or current students or alumni of TLA studies.

  Format

  This is an online class which will be taught via the online platform, Wet Ink. Each week, a new week will open full of resources, reflections, discussion questions, and writing prompts. Students should expect to spend a minimum 4-6 hours per week perusing resources and readings, answering a discussion question, engaging in several writing prompts, and responding to peers’ work. From our interactions, we sustain a welcoming and inspiring community together. We will also have two optional 40-minute Zoom sessions at 7 p.m. CT/ 8 ET/ 6 p.m. MT/ 5 p.m. PT on Thurs., March 23 and April 27 (sessions will be recorded just for class participants).

  Required Text: The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader, edited by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Janet Tallman. You can purchase the text on Amazon.

  Supplemental Text: Transformative Language Arts in Action, edited by Ruth. A. Farmer and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. You can purchase this text on Amazon or Rowman and Littlefield. 

  About the Teacher

  Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, PhD is the founder of Transformative Language Arts, the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam's Well, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body. A beloved writing workshop facilitator and writing and Right Livelihood coach, she offers writing workshops widely, particularly for people living with serious illness, adults in transition, humans looking for greater connection with the earth, and poets and writers seeking their most courageous voice on the page and in their lives. She loves life-giving collaborations, including YourRightLivelihood.com with Kathryn Lorenzen, Bravevoice.com with Kelley Hunt, and TheArtofFacilitation.net with Joy Roulier Sawyer. She offers weekly “Care Packages for a Creative Life” through her Patreon page, and her long-time blog, “Everyday Magic” at CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.

  Born hard-wired to make something (in art, music, and especially writing), Caryn’s long-time callings include writing as a spiritual and ecological path, yoga, cultivating a loving marriage, family, and community, and helping herself and others make and take leaps into the miraculous work of their lives. For over three decades, Caryn has worked with many arts and ecological/bioregional not-for-profit organizations as a grant-writer, fundraiser, staff or board member, and consultant on collaborative and community arts, group process, and better meetings. She lives in the country on land she and her husband, ecological writer Ken Lassman, have put in a conservation reserve and are restoring as prairie and woodlands. See more at www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com

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• How Pictures Heal: Expressive Writing from Personal Photos // with Kelly DuMar

  • Start
    19 April 2023
  •  
    (EDT)
  • End
    24 May 2023
  •  
    (EDT)
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    13

  Register

  
  

  We all take, save, and inherit photographs of the people, places, and things that bring meaning into our lives. These treasured personal archives will be the source of inspiration for writing as a means of restoring meaning, purpose, hope, and resilience during and after loss. Expressive writing is an act of self-care and self-awareness through deep listening and creative attention. In this workshop, it is also an engagement with beauty; the impulse to be CREATIVE is to feel connected to our imagination, our spirit, our life force. We are saying YES. Even when the material is painful or complicated. We are engaged with meaning making and transformation of the emotions and spirit. You will discover how the process of expressive writing from personal photos nourishes writing in many genres, including prose, poetry nonfiction, and memoir. TLA practitioners and writers at all levels of experience will imaginatively encounter personal photos sparked by questions that generate remarkable and uplifting writing experiences.

  Objectives & Goals

  1.  Participants will use personal photos as prompts for creative writing -  poetry, memoir, or stories that capture the personalities, relationships, rites of passage, cultural identity, and family history evoked by personal photos.  

  2.  Participants will recognize the healing aspects of storytelling from photos to build resilience and restore a sense of meaning, purpose, and value to life after loss.

  3.  Participants will use photos to probe and preserve memories, find purpose and meaning amidst loss and change, and express truth and beauty from relationships after loss.

  4.  Participants will explore the expressive benefits of writing from landscape and nature photos to connect with aspects of spirituality, safety, comfort, beauty, and transcendence.

  5.  TLA practitioners we will explore specific applications in your work with individuals and groups, such as coping with memory loss, Alzheimer’s, and dementia, and the healing power of telling end-of-life or legacy stories.

  Week by Week

  Week One: Entering the Three-Dimensional World of Photographs - Stimulate Meaning, Surprise, Delight, and Possibility 
  

  Week Two: Embracing The Imaginative Wonder - Exploring Role Reversal & Altered Point of View in Photos

  Week Three: Writing Truth & Beauty – Telling Relationship Histories, Exploring Significant Rites of Passages, and Recognizing Gifts that Keep On Giving

  Week Four: Exploring Nature, Landscape, & Favorite Places Photos - Stimulate Curiosity, Spirituality, Comfort, Relief, & Aesthetic Satisfaction & Transcendence

  Week Five: Crafting & Revision: Developing Your Raw Material - Exploring forms, including Portraits, Essays, Poems, Monologues, [Unsent] Letters, Dialogues, and Creative List-Making

  Week Six: Applications for TLA Artists, Writers, and Loved Ones – Ways to Share The Healing Power of Generating Legacy Stories from Photos

  Who Should Take This Class

  This course will serve writers and TLA practitioners at all levels of experience, as well as anyone interested in expressive writing for healing and transformation. Writers and artists with an interest in exploring the healing aspects of personal photos after loss may also be quite interested.
  

  Format

  This is an online writing-generative class with weekly 90-minute Zoom videoconferences. Each week will consist of a “Lesson” sent via e-mail for you to download that includes content designed to spark personal reflection on healing aspects of personal photos a transformative writing to be shared in the Zoom workshop. Each week, participants will (1) upload at least one personal photo to share with others that they will use as the foundation of their weekly writing exploration; (2) respond supportively to each other’s writing (3) receive insightful verbal feedback on their writing from Kelly; (4) share (optional) revisions of creative writing with Kelly for feedback and development.

  We will also meet ON ZOOM in the following combinations to give those who need day versus night options. ALL ZOOM SESSIONS WILL BE RECORDED.

  TUES April 18, 12:30–2:00 PM ET

  WED April 26, 7–8:30 PM ET

  TUES May 3, 12:30–2:00 PM ET

  TUES May 9, 12:30–2:00 PM ET

  WED May 17, 7–8:30 PM ET

  TUES May 23, 7–8:30 PM ET

  Participants should expect to spend no more than 2-3 hours or so weekly. We’ll create a safe and supportive environment, offering respectful support that inspires the development of every writer’s voice.

  
  

  
  

  About the Teacher
  

  Kelly DuMar, M.Ed. is a poet, playwright, and engaging workshop leader who generates enlivening writing experiences for new and experienced writers. Her photo-inspired creative writing method elicits profound personal awakenings, deepens connection with others, and fosters beautifully crafted writing in poetry and prose. Author of three poetry collections, her fourth poetry collection, “jinx and heavenly calling,” is forthcoming from Lily Poetry Review Press. Kelly is also author of Before You Forget—The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children. Kelly’s award-winning plays have been produced around the US and Canada, and are published by dramatic publishers. Kelly is a certified psychodramatist, former psychotherapist, and Fellow in the American Society for Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama. She founded Let’s Talk TLA, a bi-monthly tele-conference and poetry open mic for members of the Transformative Language Arts Association and teaches online for TLAN and the International Women’s Writing Guild, where she leads the Annual Summer Play Lab and more. Kelly also hosts the monthly Journal of Expressive Writing Open Mic with feature. Kelly inspires readers of #NewThisDay - her daily photo-inspired blog - with her mindful reflections on a writing life. You can learn more about Kelly, at www.kellydumar.com.

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• Listening with Our Bodies: Writing Toward Resilience // with Tracie Nichols

  • Start
    19 April 2023
  •  
    (EDT)
  • End
    10 May 2023
  •  
    (EDT)
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    13

  Register

  
  

  “Of course, it is all in the noticing, which is different than looking. It requires a more active, searching attention. A generosity, I would even call it.”

  ~Caits Meissner

  This gentle four week adventure into listening with our bodies is for people feeling stretched, overwhelmed, scattered—as if they are rice paper thin.

  Facilitators, coaches, counselors, activists, educators, writers, poets, students, word artists of all kinds—this is an invitation to explore the ways you notice and what you notice (what I call listening with our bodies) and discover how your noticing affects the steadiness of your resilience. 

  Over the course of our time together, in both our online class space and the optional Zoom meetings, we will use our love of language coupled with multi-sensory exercises to connect more deeply with our senses and explore our noticing patterns.

  In the final week, with support and encouragement from your fellow travelers and I, you will pull together the strands of what you’ve discovered to create your own gentle, noticing practices and map manageable resilience-strengthening strategies. 

  
  

  The Story Behind This Class

  When I was a small child, I was convinced the old white pine tree next to our home and the puffy clouds in the sky were telling each other the most amazing stories. I thought that if I could just figure out the right way to listen, I’d be able to hear them. 

  
  

  Tell me.

  You're so tall—

  oh tell me 

  your stories

  please.

  I promise—

  I will stretch to hold them.

  Determined and achingly curious, my small arms and legs climbed that pine tree nearly every day. I can remember feeling as if I was trying to open my senses like a sunflower—all bright petals following sunlight—so I could catch cloud stories and tree tales.

  Clinging to the sticky trunk, right ear pressed to smooth bark, left ear tilted to the sky, nose filled with resin and wet air, I was a tiny girl antennae on a wind-swayed pine. This was my first experience of listening with my body.

  
  

  Tree and cloud and

  me—I am tiny 

  but fierce 

  with belonging.

  Years later, as I navigated the saw-toothed gift of recovering from sexual trauma, listening with my body anchored me in the present, in a felt sense of safety and belonging. My body wisely transmuted sound, rhythm, and gesture into words on a page and the perceptible hand-on-pen, pen-scratching-paper feeling of writing was key to restoring my equanimity. 

  In the past few years, listening with my body and writing about it refills resilience depleted by the intensity of the times through which we are living. This practice is balm, relief, and solid and fertile ground from which to engage and create.

  
  

  Week by Week
  

  Weekly class materials will always include an embodiment practice, such as a mudra or breathing exercise, and one or more writing catalysts. 

  We will also engage with:

  • essays, articles, or book excerpts

  • videos

  • guided meditations

  • music

  • visual arts

  • self-guided movement

  • connecting with the natural world

  • developing a practice, ceremony, or ritual

  Some (definitely not all) of the words, images and music we will encounter are created by: Joy Harjo, Margaret J. Wheatley, David Abram, Terry Tempest Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Mary Oliver, Major Jackson, Camille Dungy, Henri Rousseau, Yayoi Kusama, Andrew Wyeth, Frida Kahlo, and Derrick Jensen.

  The Zoom meetings will give us the chance to do some of the exercises and writing catalysts together, to support each other in real time, and to ask and answer questions. 

  Week 1: Noticing Our Noticing—Saying Hello—Noticing What We Bring

  Accompanying Zoom meeting: Saturday, April 22, 2 - 3 pm New York time (UTC -4)

  
  

  There’s you—

  and the world—

  and the tender,

  thunderous noise

  that ties you

  How does the tender, thunderous noise that ties you to the world show up for you? With which senses do you notice it? Connect with it? Create with it? We will spend this week exploring what you notice each day, and how you notice it.

  Week 2: Going Deeper and Wider—Stirring the Pot

  Accompanying, optional, Zoom meeting: Saturday, April 29, 2 - 3 pm New York time (UTC -4)

  This week we will experiment with different ways to connect more deeply with our senses and continue noticing how and what we notice. 

  Week 3: Unearthing Insights, Drawing Conclusions

  Accompanying, optional, Zoom meeting: Saturday, May 6, 2 - 3 pm New York time (UTC -4)

  Exercises and writing catalysts this week will be designed to unearth insights and realizations and help you begin to gather threads and notice patterns. 

  Week 4: Your New Solid Ground—Closing the Circle—Offering Appreciation

  Accompanying, optional, Zoom meeting: Saturday, May 13, 2 - 3 pm New York time (UTC -4)

  In our final week using inspiration from other artists and wise folk, you will identify, imagine, design and/or create practices to support your resilience. They can take the form of rituals, ceremonies, tools, calendar notifications, whatever actions or activities that work with your innate noticing rhythms and are easily folded into your daily life.

  
  

  Who Should Take This Class

  Facilitators, coaches, counselors, activists, educators, writers, poets, students, word artists of all kinds who feel stretched, overwhelmed, scattered—as if their resilience is pulled rice paper thin—would benefit from this class.

  The point is to support word-loving folks working to foment individual or collective transformation by helping them pause, take a breath, hear the beat of their own heart and develop personalized noticing and resilience practices.

  
  

  Format
  

  This is a hybrid online class, hosted on the online teaching platform, Wet Ink, as well as Zoom. The Wet Ink platform allows students to log in on their own time to post comments and critiques directly to authors’ works. You can also view deadlines, track revisions, and watch video or listen to audio. At the end of the class, each student will receive an email that contains an archive of all their content and interactions. 

  The four optional Zoom sessions are open to everyone, especially folks who love to learn in a small group by doing and hearing.

  The day before class begins, you’ll receive an invitation to join Wet Ink. There are no browser requirements, and Wet Ink is mobile-friendly. If you have any questions about the technical requirements, please email tlan.coordinator@gmail.com.

  Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week perusing resources and readings, engaging in several writing/creation prompts, and briefly responding to peers’ work. From our interactions, we sustain a welcoming and inspiring community together.

  
  

  

  About the Facilitator

  Tracie Nichols, M.A. writes poetry and facilitates writing groups from her small desk under the wide reach of two very old and very loved Sycamore trees in southeastern Pennsylvania. She’s a Transformative Language Artist in-process and is fascinated by the potential of language to heal and transform people and communities. Putting her master’s degree in Transformative Learning and Change to good use over the past two decades, Tracie has designed and facilitated many virtual and in-person lifelong learning experiences on a truly wide range of topics for small groups. She’s just beginning her foray into submitting poetry for publication and has already accumulated a healthy pile of rejections to her few joyfully celebrated acceptances. Learn more at tracienichols.com.

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• Flash Fiction: Writing from the Subconscious // with Riham Adly

  • Start
    07 June 2023
  •  
    (EDT)
  • End
    18 July 2023
  •  
    (EDT)
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    16

  Register

  
  

  Sometimes our life stories might seem like a conspicuous puzzle we can’t put together, or perhaps a riddle we can’t solve. You might struggle with self-expression, feelings of low self-worth, and issues that impact your physical and mental well-being. You try so hard to put it all on the back burner but eventually you couldn’t because it’s too exhausting. Repression is exhausting. This workshop will help you use the medium of flash fiction and its different forms and techniques—stories fewer than 1000 words— to explore what lurks in the shadow of the subconscious. Transformation and healing may be generated by illuminating the conflicts hidden deep within our psyches through writing.

  We’ll also explore the subconscious elements of The Shadow and Polarity by looking into voice and point of view in a story. We’ll look into attachment issues and defense mechanisms from childhood which will help us develop authentic believable characters for our stories. We’ll discover the connection between colors in the Max Luscher Test and the four major pillars/ emotions/values required for both the survival and well-being of the human psyche, after which we’ll be able to use color as metaphor alluding to setting and plot. We’ll also explore dream symbols––the language of direct communication between us and the subconscious. We’ll experiment with Mosaic flash and Hermit crab flash forms to create a dream-like surreal setting.

  Week by Week

  Week One: What is Flash Fiction?

  You will be introduced to flash fiction and it’s different forms and techniques. You’ll find out ways to use flash fiction in particular to zoom in on a particular moment in time––a moment of loss, a moment of joy, or even a moment of revelation. Flash also offers the possibility of showcasing an entire lifetime in moments. Those moments are the world of your story. Flash fiction in particular is the one form that offers the most accessibility to delivering emotions. It’s a cross between the traditional short story and the poem, enjoying great flexibility and concision— however contradictory that might seem— that allows the writer to save time while still capitalizing on quality and depth of content.

  We’ll be looking into:

  1)        Traditionally narrated flash

  2)        Hermit Crab flash

  3)        Segmented/ Mosiac flash

  4)        Prose-poem flash

  5)        Flash in a moment 

  6)        A life-time in a flash

  7)        Polyphonic or braided flash 

  8)        Surreal flash fiction 

  Week Two: Polarity and the Shadow.  

  The block/fear/perception of not having any new stories to tell is quite strong, but what makes a story different than any other is the narrative voice and the character’s perception. In every story there’s a conflict, some sort of need and maybe a thwarted desire. 

  We’ll start exploring what’s truly hindering our characters from attaining their desires when discovering the concept of Polarity. We’ll discover what it is and how it shapes the perception of our characters and reflexes through voice and point of view. Polarity ultimately leads to the manifestation of The Shadow lurking deep within our subconscious. This Shadow represents all that is rejected and repressed by our characters and ourselves as well. What our characters reject can haunt and plague them in the form of obstacles, adversaries or even chronic physical and mental illness. We’ll have reading material that can inspire us to respond to the provided prompt.

  Week Three: (Character)

  Where it all starts.  Childhood Attachment Patterns. This week you’ll deep dive into what shapes the limited perspective of your characters. It all starts during childhood years. Attachment patterns result from the relationships your characters had with their care-taker/authority figures. Those relationships or attachment patterns can shape your characters’ personalities as adults, governing and accounting for their response to current relationships and stressors in the world of your story.

  Week Four: (Plot)

  How we survive. Defense and Coping Mechanisms. Plot is action or even a certain way of thought. After figuring out our characters’ attachment patterns which are expressed in the story through behaviors, attitudes and body language, we’ll start putting together how our characters cope with limitations and defend themselves in response to the induced obstacle/desire/ need they’re seeking in the story.

  Week Five: (Metaphor/Utilizing Strong Sensory Details)

  Colors. Colors! Colors?

  Attention to sensory details allows our stories to take a life of their own, capturing the reader’s attention. We’ll focus on bringing out emotional details through the use of color symbology. Our aim is to craft pieces that reflect the world of our ongoing story and to find the means to enable our characters to start resolving conflicts.

  Week Six: (The Unexpected Setting)

  Dreams. The setting of a story is by far more than just time and place. A character’s inner world can be reflected in the story through a dream-like sequence, a surreal setting that might be manifested into his/her everyday life. 

  Who Should Take This Class

  Creative writers, storytellers, teachers, healers, therapists, creative arts therapy students and practitioners, Writers planning memoirs, writers exploring Flash Fiction.

  Format
  

  This is an online class, hosted on the online teaching platform, Wet Ink, as well as Zoom. The Wet Ink platform allows students to log in on their own time to post comments and critiques directly to authors’ works. You can also view deadlines, track revisions, and watch video or listen to audio. At the end of the class, each student will receive an email that contains an archive of all their content and interactions. 

  The course will include six zoom classes taking place Saturdays from 1:30-2:30 pm EST.  Zoom sessions will be recorded and sent to participants who missed the session. We do a final open mic Zoom meeting where participants read their finished piece, with the goal of building community and connection. Check out our past showcase here.

  The day before class begins, you’ll receive an invitation to join Wet Ink. There are no browser requirements, and Wet Ink is mobile-friendly. If you have any questions about the technical requirements, please email tlan.coordinator@gmail.com.
  

  Students should expect to spend 3 hours per week perusing resources and readings, engaging in several writing/creation prompts, and briefly responding to peers’ work. From our interactions, we sustain a welcoming and inspiring community together.

  
  

  About the Facilitator

  Riham Adly is an award-winning flash fiction writer from Giza, Egypt. In 2013 her story “The Darker Side of the Moon” won the MAKAN award. She was short-listed several times for the Strand International Flash Fiction Contest. Riham is a Best of the NET and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work is included in the “Best Micro-fiction 2020” anthology. Her flash fiction has appeared in over fifty journals such as Litro Magazine, Lost Balloon, The Flash Flood, Bending Genres, The Citron Review, The Sunlight Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, Menacing Hedge, Flash Frontier, Flash Back, Ellipsis Zine, Okay Donkey, and New Flash Fiction Review among others.  Riham has worked as an assistant editor in 101 words magazine and as a first reader in Vestal Review magazine. Riham is the founder of the “Let’s Write Short Stories” and “ Let’s Write That Novel” in Egypt. She has taught creative writing all over Cairo for over five years with the goal of mentoring and empowering aspiring writers in her region.  Riham’s flash fiction collection “Love is Make-Believe” was  released and published in November 2021 by Clarendon House Publications in the UK.
  

  Show details
• Twelve Poets to Change Your Life // with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

  • Start
    07 June 2023
  • End
    18 July 2023
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    12

  Register

  
  

  Class Description

  Want to immerse yourself into poetry you may already love or will get to fall in love with while also generating a lot of new poems of your own? Come expand your understanding of how poetry can foster healing, advocate for liberation, break silences, create community, grow courage, and continually give us new maps to find our own true north. 

  This six-week class leads you on a journey through illuminating poetry from contemporary and historic poets who speak from a multitude of communities, places, times, and traditions. We’ll read some of the writing of Ilya Kaminsky, Patricia Smith, Czeslaw Milosz, Muriel Rukeyser, Joy Harjo, Galway Kinnell, Diane Seuss, Li-Young Lee, Emily Dickinson, Linda Pastan, Walt Whitman, and Ada Limón.

  
  

  Each week features two poets, including a sampling of their poetry, links to articles and interviews, and a summary about what their work offers us as readers and writers. Additionally, each week includes craft lesson, writing tips, and lots of writing prompts to help you open doors to your new poems. We’ll share our writing and positive responses to each others’ writing online in a warm and welcoming community. By the end of the workshop, you'll have a big bunch of new poems and, through the poets we're exploring, lots of new poet-companions.

  
  

  Week-by-week Lesson Plan Summary

  Week One: Who We Are Alone and In a Crowd: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson: This week’s historic poets deeply consider what it is to contain multitudes (Whitman) and speak in deep solitude (Dickinson), both of whom have a lot to show us about identity, history, and voice. 

  Week Two: The Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Linda Pastan and Patricia Smith: Find the magic in everyday life through writing about the seemingly ordinary in all its extraordinary specifics, all of which shows us more of real life in real life. 

  Week Three: Liberation and Illumination: Ilya Kaminsky and Muriel Rukeyser: Poets, including one current (Kaminsky) and one historic (Rukeyser) poet this week, who write of transformation and freedom shine a light on what it is to survive and build greater community with others who seek liberation. 

  Week Four: Healing Fountains: Li-Young Lee and Ada Limon: Through exploring the poetry of personal and communal healing in Lee’s and Limon’s poetry, we can find and write some of our own healing fountains, surfacing what's ripe for revising in our lives and life stories to craft more authentic and generous narratives to write and live. 

  Week Five: Finding Home: Galway Kinnell and Czeslaw Milosz: Poets who write deeply about home in multiple dimensions can help us see where we live, from our bodies to the cosmos. This week's poets open windows into the ways we come home to our bodies, places, and ecoregions. 

  Week Six: Maps to a New World: Diane Seuss and Joy Harjo: Poetry can also help us re-envision where and how we live, lighting from within the details and big picture views of our lives. By considering the work of these poets who write so vividly of the present, stretching language to show us new maps, we can better comprehend the possibilities of our time and place.

  
  

  Intended Audience

  This is a generative class for all people who drawn to poetry, whether you're just getting started or have a long-time practice. All the writing prompts and interactive activities are designed to meet you where you are and gather us into a vibrant poetry community for the duration of our time together. 

  
  

  Format

  This is an online class in which we come together through an interactive website in council, reaching across the miles to hold one another's words and reflect deeply on what we discover individually and together. Each week includes ample writing prompts, a short essay on the poets we're visiting with this week, a discussion and examples of the craft of strong writing, and a short meditative piece (often a podcast) about this week's theme, including considerations for your own immersion into the writing life. Expect to spend a minimum of 2-5 hours per week on writing poems and responses to each other on our site. Participants are also asked to respond to at least three other participants' work each week, deepening our dialogue altogether. Most of the exercises will give participants options to write in the genre of their choice.

  We will also meet in two optional Zoom meetings -- at the beginning (to get to know each other) and end (to celebrate our writing) of the class at 7 CT/ 8 ET/ 6 MT/ 5 PT Sun., June 11 and Sun., July 16.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  About the Teacher
  

  Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, PhD is the founder of Transformative Language Arts, the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam's Well, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body. A beloved writing workshop facilitator and writing and Right Livelihood coach, she offers writing workshops widely, particularly for people living with serious illness, adults in transition, humans looking for greater connection with the earth, and poets and writers seeking their most courageous voice on the page and in their lives. She loves life-giving collaborations, including YourRightLivelihood.com with Kathryn Lorenzen, Bravevoice.com with Kelley Hunt, and TheArtofFacilitation.net with Joy Roulier Sawyer. She offers weekly “Care Packages for a Creative Life” through her Patreon page, and her long-time blog, “Everyday Magic” at CarynMirriamGoldberg.com. 

  Born hard-wired to make something (in art, music, and especially writing), Caryn’s long-time callings include writing as a spiritual and ecological path, yoga, cultivating a loving marriage, family, and community, and helping herself and others make and take leaps into the miraculous work of their lives. For over three decades, Caryn has worked with many arts and ecological/bioregional not-for-profit organizations as a grant-writer, fundraiser, staff or board member, and consultant on collaborative and community arts, group process, and better meetings. She lives in the country on land she and her husband, ecological writer Ken Lassman, have put in a conservation reserve and are restoring as prairie and woodlands. See more at www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com

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