Uncovering the Whole Self: Create Poetic Self-Portraits with Ayokunle Falomo
February 3, 2025 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm CST
$135Monday(s), February 3 & 10, 2025, 6:30-8:30pm, CST, via Zoom
Nonmember $135 Member $115 Student $80
*EARN CPE’S
TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE
Everything in the world that we touch, smell, see, taste, or hear is a mirror reflecting us, if we dare to look closely. Despite this truth, the world (sometimes violently) demands we hide who we are. How do we bring our whole selves to the page, especially when it feels dangerous to do so?
In this two-session workshop, we will use works of art by revered artists like Frida Kahlo plus poems by Safia Elhillo, Chen Chen, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Tarfia Faizullah to generate new work through the lens of self-reflection. Participants will also use writing prompts to reflect deeply on who they are. What new truths will be discovered, or uncovered, about the self? How will you use these exercises to shape poems that are honest and vulnerable?
This course is open to writers of all genres, backgrounds, and skill levels, 18+.
Students will leave this workshop with:
- At least two drafts of new written work and one revised draft
- New close reading techniques and critical observation skills
- Strategies to overcome fears when it comes to writing about the vulnerable
Ayokunle Falomo is Nigerian, American, and the author of Autobiomythography of (Alice James Books, 2024), AFRICANAMERICAN’T (FlowerSong Press, 2022—finalist for Texas Institute of Letters’ Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry), two self-published collections and African, American (New Delta Review, 2019; selected by Selah Saterstrom as the winner of New Delta Review’s 8th annual chapbook contest). A recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, MacDowell, and the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program, where he obtained his MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry, his work has been anthologized and widely published.
