Write Here, Write Now | Fargo Tbakhi: "Revolutionary Poetry"

Pop-Up Workshop: Write Here, Write Now | Fargo Tbakhi: "Revolutionary Poetry"

Need ideas to help you start writing? Join us for a monthly pop-up workshop co-presented by Phoenix College and ASU's Piper Center for Creative Writing. Each session includes a 30-minute mini-class and a writing prompt exploring some aspect of craft—setting, dialogue, character development, etc.—followed by focused writing time and the opportunity to read your work to the group. Tonight, Fargo Tbakhi (Winner of the 2018 Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Scholarship) continues the series with "Revolutionary Poetry."
In her poem, “The Master’s House,” luminary poet Solmaz Sharif's writes the lines: "To eye the master's bone china / to pour diuretic in his coffee and think this / erosive to the state." While diuretic in the coffee might not erode the state, perhaps poetry might. In this workshop, we’ll explore ways that poetry can work against states and their violence; how we might mold our poetics into bricks. Looking at work from poets like Solmaz Sharif, Sean Bonney, Dareen Tatour, Wendy Trevino, Amiri Baraka, and others, we’ll identify poetic strategies for working against the state, which we’ll use as the basis for in-class writing exercises and generative prompts. By the end of the workshop, participants will leave with new, original poems to continue working on at home, and concrete techniques for engaging in social issues, and a deeper understanding of the political power of poetry.

• Please bring paper and pen or an electronic device to write on.