FULLY FUNDED POETRY RETREAT FOR AN INDIGENOUS POET

Thanks to an anonymous donor, PEP is offering a bursary to support the attendance of an Indigenous poet at Laura Apol’s “Writing as Witness” retreat, scheduled at Honeymoon Bay for October 26 to 29. The bursary covers the full cost of the retreat ($975 for a private room and all meals) plus travel expenses from Victoria. All retreat attendees are required to be fully vaccinated. Two spaces at this workshop have been held for Indigenous attendees, one of which will be covered by this bursary. Please e-mail us HERE to express interest. On September 15th, we will do a random draw from received expressions of interest to determine the recipient.

POetry as witness

A three-day residential writing intensive led by laura apol

***fully booked except for space held for indigenous bursary recipient***

Tuesday October 26 to Friday October 29, 2021 at Honeymoon Bay Lodge & Retreat Centre

The facts of this world seen clearly

are seen through tears;

why tell me then

there is something wrong with my eyes?

To see clearly and without flinching,

without turning away,

this is agony…

Witness is what you must bear

                                                            (Margaret Atwood)

This unflinching honesty on the part of the poet, this engagement with “the facts of the world” as something to be expressed as well as something to be endured, undergirds the notion of “poetry of witness”—a term created by poet Carolyn Forché in 1993.  Forché’s notion of poetry of witness is a merging of the political and the personal; she writes, “If we give up the … personal, we risk relinquishing one of the most powerful sites of resistance. The celebration of the personal, however, can indicate a myopia, an inability to see how larger structures of the economy and the state circumscribe, if not determine, the fragile realm of individuality” (p. 31).

In this workshop, we will explore the meeting place of the personal and the political through poetry of witness. While it might be argued that all poetry is, in some ways, “witness,” we will think in particular about Witness poetry written by those who are survivors of trauma as well as by those who are “witnesses once removed.” In our reading and writing, we will consider a range of things that require the bearing of witness—broad political and social issues, and in particular the things that have occupied much of the past eighteen months: climate change, medical crises, ongoing colonial violence and its repercussions, economic disparities, abuse based on race, ethnicity, religion, immigrant status, and interpersonal repercussions. that are part of these concerns. As well, we will contemplate obligations and responsibilities that accompany witnessing and the need for self-care in witness-bearing.

 During our time together, we will read examples, write, work on out-of-gathering “invitations,” and share our writings as we choose.

Dr. Laura Apol teaches creative writing and literature at Michigan State University. For more than twenty years, she has led workshops for writers of all skill levels in local, national and international contexts. Her poetry has appeared in a number of literary journals and anthologies, and she is the author of several award-winning collections including; Requiem, Rwanda (drawn from her work using writing to facilitate healing among survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi); Nothing but the Blood (silver medal winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award); and, most recently, A Fine Yellow Dust.

Cost:

$975 for single room, includes all meals, breaks, private room

$795 for shared accommodation, all meals, breaks