Poetry Workshop with Sherwin Bitsui
Vancouver Manuscript Intensive Presents
Diné Patterns: A Two Hour Poetry Workshop with Sherwin Bitsui
Thursday, January 30, 2019
7pm-9pm
Perchance Café, 3363 Dunbar St, (at 17th) Vancouver
Registration opens to VMI participants Dec 3, 2019 before opening to the general public Dec 10.
This two-hour poetry workshop will combine the reading of texts by three Diné poets with writing our own poems. We will look at how these poets reference cultural content, origination, and pattern to shape form and content. We will then do our own generative writing using the discussed strategies for employing landscape and structural patterns as portals in our own poems. Open to writers from all experience levels and backgrounds. Writers working in other genres are welcome. Please bring pen and paper, or a laptop, and willingness to experiment and listen.
Sherwin Bitsui (Diné) is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. He is Diné of the Todich’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl’izilani (Many Goats Clan). He is the author of Shapeshift (University of Arizona Press, 2003), Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), and Dissolve (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). His honors include a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship and a Native Arts & Culture Foundation Arts Fellowship. He is also the recipient of a 2010 PEN Open Book Award, an American Book Award, and a Whiting Writers Award. In addition to teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts, he is a member of the faculty at Northern Arizona University.
Date: Thursday, January 30, 2019, 7pm-9pm
Cost: $20, payable by check or cash at the event.
To register: send an email with your name, contact info, and preferred method of payment to info@vancouvermanuscriptintensive.com
Participation will be capped at 15.
We have reserved a limited number of pay-what-you-can spaces for Indigenous writers who wish to take the workshop but experience the registration fee as a barrier. If this applies to you, please email info@vancouvermanuscriptintensive.com by Jan 5, 2020.
Spots will be offered on a first-come first-serve basis, and any unclaimed spots will be opened to other registrants on Jan 10, 2020.
Location: Perchance Café, 3363 Dunbar St, (at 17th) Vancouver, BC V6S 2B9, 778 832 0187
Venue is wheelchair accessible. Seating options are soft padded stools, low sofas, firm café chairs without arms. Please avoid/reduce scents.
Café drinks and light snacks available for purchase. Please contact info@vancouvermanuscriptintensive.com to register and for more info.