Workshops, Craft Talks, & Readings

Labor shapes our relationship to language. From corporate emails to instructions for post-mortem care, we all become familiar with the authority of voices and hierarchies within the workplace. How might we harness those same voices in our creative work? In this course, we will close-read poets like Paul Hlava Ceballos, Monica Sok, Belle Waring, and others to analyze how they use lexicons centered on labor to imbue their poems with an authoritative voice and, in turn, challenge the authority of these labor systems. We will examine craft choices made by each poet and apply similar strategies to our own creative work. This discussion will include practical research tips, writing prompts, and ethical considerations for representing our communities.