Poet as Witness: Writing About Historical Traumas April 26, 2008

You will use newspaper articles, photos and objects as launch points into new poems inspired by 9/11, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the Indonesian tsunami (2004) and Darfur to create several free writes that will be polished into strong poems that sing, cry and rage with authentic voices. Participants will leave with several poems inhabited by strong, authentic voices. The guided in-class exercises will explore ways of finding and generating the truth in your "voice" and in your work as you revise and refine the new work created in this workshop.