Write Through It: A Generative Workshop on Grief and Loss (age 18+): Part 1 of 2

Description

When someone we love has died, expressing our shattered hearts can seem impossible. Words often seem empty in the face of so much emotion and transformation. Poem-making is powerful medicine: a means to bring into the light what was stuck inside, a mirror to see ourselves with more clarity and love. Writing and reading the poetry of our grief brings validation, insight and healing. In this interactive workshop with Teaching Artist John, participants will discuss how to keep a grief journal, study a number of poems exploring the various facets of grief, and draft two or three new poems. The workshop includes a robust 21-page workbook with dozens of poems and five specific writing activities, along with poems from Donald Hall, W.S. Merwin, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mary Oliver, Natasha Trethewey, and others. Participants are encouraged to use whatever they feel most comfortable writing with: pen and paper, computer, or phone note.

Teaching Artist: John Sibley Williams

Cost: $45 Member / $50 Non-Member

Location: Virtual

John Sibley Williams is the author of Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Book Award, 2021), The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award, 2021),  As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory(Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), skyscrape (WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook Contest), Summon(JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize, 2019),  Disinheritance, and Controlled Hallucinations. His book Sky Burial: New & Selected Poems is forthcoming in translated form by the Portuguese press do lado esquerdo. He has also served as editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies, Alive at the Center (Ooligan Press, 2013) and Motionless from the Iron Bridge (barebones books, 2013). 

A thirty-five-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Laux/Millar Prize, Wabash Prize, Philip Booth Award, Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, The 46er Prize, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Vallum Award for Poetry. Previous publishing credits include: Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Southern Review, Colorado Review, Sycamore Review, Prairie Schooner, Massachusetts Review, and various anthologies. 

John holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rivier University and an MA in Book Publishing from Portland State University. He is the founder and head teacher of Caesura Poetry Workshop, a virtual workshop series, and serves as co-founder and editor of The Inflectionist Review. He also works as a poetry editor and book coach. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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