BRING TO BEAR: Writing & Reading the World We Witness

BRING TO BEAR: Writing & Reading the World We Witness (2-part workshop) Wednesday and Thursday, August 13 & 14, 10 am to 12 noon

When Carolyn Forché introduced the term “poetry of witness” in the anthology Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, she didn’t intend it as a prescription, polemic, or euphemism for “political poetry.” Rather, a poem of witness, written out of what was endured, bears that imprint such that the poem is the experience—and that experience marks the reader, who thus becomes a witness, too.

In this two-part seminar, we will explore contemporary poems of social and historical extremity by Carolyn Forché and others, to inform the writing of our own poems of social, historical, and personal extremity. Exercises will be offered to complete outside of class discussion.

Marj Hahne is a freelance editor, writer, and writing teacher, and a 2015 MFA graduate from the Rainier Writing Workshop, in poetry. She has performed and taught at over 100 venues around the country, including public radio and television programs. Her poems have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, art exhibits, and dance performances. To celebrate the singularity of every poet’s life, and to be in conversation with our po-peers, she launched the online Living Poets Project, posting a poem excerpt by a living poet on their birthday and inviting the reader’s poetic response. To make poetry hospitable, she reads poems to dogs and pairs poems with craft beers, spirits, and coffee for her YouTube channel. www.marjhahne.com