40 Abbot Rd
East Lansing, MI 48823
USA
WORKSHOP: Honoring the Journey: a Poetry Workshop on Creating through Loss and Pain
Thursday, March 12, 2020 6:30-8PM | MSU Union Art Gallery / MSU Room, MSU Union
Lead by Kimberly Ann Priest, Assistant Professor, Writing Rhetoric and American Culture
Emotions that arise from loss—such as grief, fear, and depression—can be difficult to process, especially when they are stigmatized in public spaces or dismissed by those close to us. Nevertheless, these emotions continue to require our attention until we are willing to give them the care that they so desperately need. Psychology has long recognized the value of art to the process of working through these emotions because the act of creation, or making things, is empowering.
As part of the exhibit We are Worth Everything: Survivors as Themselves, I invite you to make things out of these emotions. On Thursday, March 12 from 6:30-8pm we will weave object and experience to craft poems that give voice to the contradictory nature of our journeys as carriers of loss and pain and all their accompanying emotions. Come create, write, and map these journeys with us.
Attendees should come prepared to write with notebook and writing utensil as well as an object or objects that reflect or memorialize part of their journey with a particular loss and/or pain. Workshop is suitable to ages thirteen and up and can accommodate up to twenty-four participants. To RSVP please email: priestk1@msu.edu.
Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of the chapbooks Still Life (PANK, 2020), Parrot Flower (Glass 2020), and White Goat Black Sheep (FLP 2018). Her poetry has appeared in several literary journals and she is a winner of the 2019 Heartland Poetry Prize from New American Press. Her creative work carefully observes the intersections between trauma, sexual assault, chaos narratives, and grief. A former book reviewer for NewPages and intern with Sundress Publications, she is currently Assistant Professor of First-Year Writing at Michigan State University and an associate editor for the Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry. You can find her work at kimberlyannpriest.com