Haunting and Inheritance: A Generative Writing Workshop

with Jamaica Baldwin

Saturday July 20th, 2023 1PM—4PM Pacific over Zoom
(A recording will be made available to all registrants for a limited period afterwards.)

"As if all loss we’ve experienced begins with the loss or theft of language, we venture out in search of articulate ghosts, muted exiles, explicit modes of disappearing what we’re too timid to name and hold." —Harmony Holiday

"Her bars lie wet, open / and empty and she has made herself again / out of flesh out of dictionaries." —Lucille Clifton

The places we inhabit and the landscapes we inherit inform how we navigate the stories that shape us and the silences that surround us. What we carry, what we choose to protect and what we choose to release, are deeply connected to these internal and external narratives. Using a sample of contemporary poems as guides, we will write into these legacies in order to transform them, to listen to the silences, to remember, to disrupt.

Questions we'll consider:

—Which personal and public narratives most shape you and those you love?

—What happens when the only story you’ve been told is only half the truth? What happens when that half-truth takes on the weight of myth?

—How can the narrative, the image, the metaphor navigate and carry the weight of our hauntings and inheritances?

Audre Lorde once said, “If I didn’t define myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” Through exploratory exercises, writing prompts, and discussion we will identify and reshape the narratives that haunt us.

***

Pricing:

The following payment model is inspired by and borrowed from the payment model of Bayo Akomolafe’s class, We Will Dance With Mountains: Into the Cracks.

This workshop offers a sliding scale based on your relative financial standing. In an effort to reflect disparity in economic condition and access to wealth, the following payment system is designed for those with more wealth to help cover the costs of those with less access to wealth and resources. We trust your discernment of your current financial situation and how you fit into the global economic context.

As you decide what amount to pay, please consider your present-day financial situation governed by income, but also the following factors: historical discrimination faced by your peoples; your financial wealth (retirement/savings/investments); your access to income and financial wealth, both current and anticipated (how easily could you earn more income compared to other people in your community, country, and the world; are you expecting an inheritance); people counting on your financial livelihood including dependents and community members; the socio-economic conditions of your locale (relative to other places in your country and in the world); your relationship to food & resource scarcity.

$250 Partner

$175 Supporter (Note: This amount reflects the “real” value of this course.)

$100 Companion

$50 Friend

Scholarships are also still available for anyone needing further financial assistance. Please email Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com for more info, or if you are feeling challenged in any way by the financial requirements of participation.

***

Jamaica Baldwin (she/her) is a poet and educator originally from Santa Cruz, CA. Her first book, Bone Language, was published by YesYes Books in June 2023. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Guernica, World Literature Today, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and Poetry Northwest among others. She's the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a RHINO Poetry editor's prize.

Jamaica has also served as a community based teaching artist with Writers in the Schools - Seattle, Louder Than a Bomb - Great Plains (an affiliate of Nebraska Writers Collective), and taught a generative writing workshop for women in Guatemala. She has an MFA from Pacific University - Oregon and a PhD from the University of Nebraska -Lincoln in English with a focus on poetry and Women's and Gender Studies. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College in New York.