Generative Poetry with Natasha Oladokun
Wrestling the Divine: The Poem as Prayer
Each Day
Class each day will include workshop and robust discussions of assigned readings by a wide variety of poets across gendered, religious, and racial experiences. A writing prompt will be offered each day, which participants are welcome to submit to workshop for the following session.
Preparation
This class is meant to be as generative as possible for each participant, and naturally, this can look different for different people! Participants have the option to bring previously written poems for workshop, write new poems each day in response to the daily writing prompt, or dabble with a combination of the two.
Regardless, on the first day of class participants should plan to bring an original poem that they feel gestures toward the workshop's topic to share with the workshop. Poems will be workshopped cold, but there will be plenty of guidance and collective collaboration on how we can workshop effectively, with an eye toward possibility and curiosity.
Supplies
Please bring pens, paper, and a laptop.
Who is best suited for this class?
This workshop is for writers of any experience level or connection to spirituality—all that’s required is a sense of fun, wonder, and curiosity.
This class is open to anyone, regardless of prior experience! In this workshop, you’ll learn:
-Various poetic approaches to writing
-How tools of craft and form enrich our understanding of poems
-Methods for revising new drafts that focus on possibility rather than self-criticism
About the Instructor
Natasha Oladokun is a Black, queer poet and essayist from Virginia. They hold fellowships from Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where they were the inaugural First Wave Poetry fellow. She is writing her first poetry collection.