The Sundress Academy for the Arts hosts the Sundress Workshop Series, a series of generative writing workshops emphasizing composition, revision, and creative development. As part of Sundress Publications, the Sundress Workshop Series provide focused, personalized instruction to writers of all skill levels. Participants are treated to guidance from advanced instructors who help them to not only hone their craft but also find suitable venues for their work. These monthly workshops are free to attend.
Workshops
“And yet … There’s still Joy”: Joy as an Act of Resistance in Poetry
April 10, 2024, 6:00-7:30PM EST
http://tiny.utk.edu/sundress
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “And yet … There’s still Joy”: Joy as an Act of Resistance in Poetry, a workshop led by Barbara Fant on April 10th, 2024, from 6:00-7:30 PM. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).
Throughout this workshop, participants will learn how other poets over time have experienced and explored joy in their writing. We will read and listen to poems and discuss how joy shows up in poetry, from the small joys in everyday life to healing through trauma. We will specifically explore the work of Toi Derricotte, her usage of “joy as an act of resistance,” and how we can use our writing to explore and experience more deeply the small moments of joy in our daily lives.
We will also explore how to lean into writing when healing through pain, trauma, and grief, and ultimately, finding joy in the midst of it all. Participants will experience the poetry of contemporary poets, receive writing prompts, be offered time and space to write, and then receive the invitation to share with others.
While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciate may make donations directly to Barbara Fant via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App. Her Venmo is @Barbara-Fant-1, PayPal is barbfant127@gmail.com, and CashApp is $Bloom127.
This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry and the Tennessee Arts Commission.
Mapping & Memory: Poetic Cartographies
May 8, 2024, 6:00-7:30PM EST
http://tiny.utk.edu/sundress
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Mapping & Memory: Poetic Cartographies,” a workshop led by Kenzie Allen on May 8th, 2024, from 6:00-7:30 PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).
How does a poem teach us to read its map? How can memory allow us to swiftly navigate through vast terrains of time and space within the span of a poem? In this generative workshop inspired by Indigenous and extracanonical methods of mapmaking and storytelling, we’ll chart the literary cartographies of authors like Craig Santos Perez, Richard Siken, Pattiann Rogers, and more, to uncover new possibilities for using context-aware forms and patterns in books and individual poems.
Through a series of writing exercises, we’ll use memory, cultural inheritances, and geographic imagination to develop new markers and map legends toward making and expanding our own poetic landscapes. Participants should expect to finish the class having generated the start of several new poems, and with new ideas in hand for approaching poetry in both reading and writing.
While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may make donations directly to Kenzie Allen via PayPal. Her PayPal is @getkenzieallen.
Kenzie Allen, author of Cloud Missives (Tin House, 2024), is a Haudenosaunee poet and multimodal artist. A finalist for the national Poetry Series, she is the recipient of the James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets, a 92NY Discovery Prize, and the 49th Parallel Poetry Award.
This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry and the Tennessee Arts Commission.
From Selfie to Poetry: Writing the Self-Portrait Poem
June 12, 2024, 6:00-7:30PM EST
http://tiny.utk.edu/sundress
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “From Selfie to Poetry: Writing the Self-Portrait Poem,” a workshop led by Amie Whittemore on Wednesday, June 12th, 2024, from 6-7:30 PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).
In this generative workshop, we will explore the self-portrait poem and what it means to explicitly make the self—as messy and resistant to definition as it is—the subject of our poems. We’ll take inspiration from visual arts as well as contemporary poetry to draft new work and expand our poetic selves.
Participants of all levels of experience are welcome.
While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may make donations directly to Amie Whittemore via Venmo @Amie-Whittemore or Paypal via @AmieWhittemore.
Amie Whittemore (she/her) is the author of the poetry collections Glass Harvest (Autumn House Press), Star-tent: A Triptych (Tolsun Books), and Nest of Matches (Autumn House Press, 2024). She was the 2020-2021 Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. She teaches creative writing at Eastern Illinois University and directs MTSU Write, a from-home creative writing mentorship program.
This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry and the Tennessee Arts Commission.