Poetry for the People Workshop

We need a new language for these times. Poets and poems are central to the global movement towards peace and justice. We will examine poems that resist and renew, that give us hope and joy. We will explore various poets from all over the globe. Madison Poet Laureate Angie Trudell Vasquez will share her work and poetic influences including Carolyn Forché, Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz, Eduardo Galeano, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Arthur Sze, among others, and the craft techniques they employed in their work. We will write our own poems of witness and share.

“If you look back over the past 100 years, you can see how vital poetry has been in the movement for peace and social justice.”

— from “The Poetry of Protest,” a speech delivered by Matthew Rothschild on November 3, 2012, to the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild precious life?”

— Mary Oliver from her poem “The Summer Day”