Lift Off — The BIPOC Edition

A poetry workshop for people of colour who want to explore poetry

Welcome to Lift Off.

This is a joyful and productive workshop for people of colour who want to dive into the mysterious ocean called poetry.

It’s especially designed for folks who feel awkward about the idea of poetry. It’s designed for folks who don’t think they “get” poetry. It’s designed or folks who think that maybe poetry is a party they weren’t invited to.

We’ll tear down the walls of what we think a poem is and rebuild them in whatever way we want, building self-trust, delight and discovery into every step.

As a BIPOC-only space, we’ll especially welcome themes and content that might not arise in predominantly white spaces. We’ll work from examples by writers of colour, lifting up voices that are often marginalized in the mainstream.

Here’s how it works:

We’ll meet on Zoom once a week for six weeks. Each week we’ll look at a different “function” of poetry (to delight, to create pause, to make a political statement, etc.) We’ll revel in some of the ways other poets have filled this function and we’ll take what we love into our own work.

We’ll also write poems for people, using real-life poem requests by other BIPOC in our community to inspire new work.

There will be lots of room for experimentation, laughter, tears and nonsense. There will also be homework, so come prepared to work between sessions.

We have an open version of this class for people of any racial background, this one is reserved for people who identify as Black, Indigenous or people of colour, including mixed race.