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An Act of Tremendous Limitation
a poetry and prose writing workshop w/Brody Wood

Mondays
February 2, 9, 16, 23
6-8 p.m.
Cost: $40-60 sliding scale
To register:

sliding scale

Option 1 $60.00 USD Option 2 $50.00 USD Option 3 $40.00 USD

Where in your life do you set up boundaries? In those spaces, what are the stories you wish to write? In this workshop we’ll look at the major elements of our day-to-day (love, work, family, struggle, getting ready in the morning, eating dinner) and recognize the boundaries we set around our bodies and psyches in order to experience those major elements as safely as possible. We’ll congratulate ourselves for having, at times, not shared parts of ourselves that we weren’t willing to share. We’ll congratulate ourselves for not always testing our own limits, and for not letting others test us. We’ll identify the stories that rest at the helm of those boundaries and try to find words for them, at our own will. We’ll give ourselves permission to announce that within us which has decidedly remained hyperpersonal and shrouded. This workshop will primarily encourage poetry and prose crafting (but we can break rules here) and will feature material by Margaret Atwood, Nic Alea, James Schuyler and Jim Daniels. This workshop will also aim to be a safer space for the possibility of exploring such things as trauma, shame and sadness through storytelling. In each session, we’ll draft a small piece of writing focused on one section of the nuanced things we feel shy about, attempt working on them in the comfort of our homes, then workshop the following week. In the spirit of privacy, we’ll experiment with options of being our own peer editor and looking at our work objectively. By session four, we’ll spend a bit more time crafting one draft that we feel eager to work on, and we’ll look forward to hearing each other’s work as we’re willing to share. Throughout, we’ll have conversations about the ways in which finally telling a story you have been meaning to tell can be challenging, revolutionary and healing. To be clear, I am not a therapist and do not intend to facilitate that type of service, and these conversations are meant to support our future endeavours as writers.

Teacher Bio:

Brody Wood is a queer, transgender, injured, punk rock, sensitive writer and teacher living in Maine and Arizona. They work as a teaching artist with Portland, Maine's nonprofit writing center, the Telling Room, fostering the belief that young people are natural storytellers. Brody writes poems and essays about love, loss, trauma, disability and dysphoria. They write a column for DigPortland about gay stuff called Queersay. They care deeply about radical support networks, country music, skateboarding, the Dallas Cowboys, romantic friendships, curriculum development, their family, Drake and crying.