Poetry as Speculative Fiction

To live with authenticity in these times is to live with and within the questions of how to unmake and remake (our) selves as we witness unspeakable catastrophes simultaneously. Reassembling selves as a precondition to possibility.

Poetry is prayer. Poetry is also a speculative fictional device offering a sketchpad for world-building and hypothesis-testing. A portal into our questions, concerns, possibilities, pathways into how we must resurrect the soul: the soul of our individual selves, the soul of the interstitial spaces between us, the soul of this shared earth being carved out alive.

Together, we will learn to think through poems to explore the boundaries and geographies of the personal to political to personal. We will learn to appreciate poetry as a cartographic device to reveal present realities. And more urgently, as a simulation device with teeth and sharp edges to inquire, interrogate, indict these same realities towards constructing elsewheres for us all to inhabit, in equality and in vitality. This will be a collective study and a genre-agnostic generative writing space. Participants will be free to generate writing in any genre format and let the words on the page hold material essence and capacity to translate into the praxis of quotidian livings.

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Details: Poetry as Speculative Fiction with Shraddha Shah takes place Saturday, September 19th from 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET remotely online via Zoom.

Genre: Poetry

‍Level: All levels

‍Format: One session craft talk

‍Location: This class takes place remotely online via Zoom.

‍Size: Limited to 25 participants (including two scholarship recipients).

‍Scholarships: Two scholarship spots are available for this class for writers in Northeast Ohio. Apply by Sunday, August 23rd. Click here to apply.

‍Cancellations & Refunds: Cancel at least 48 hours in advance of the first class meeting to receive a full refund. Email programs@litcleveland.org.