Words make worlds. At all levels of our society, the words we and others use inform how we inhabit our lives. In a performance-driven society, most identities—from job to gender to race to citizenship—are performed. How well we perform in our assigned roles reflects how we have absorbed and interpreted the language that builds the social frameworks in which we function. And while identities may feel fixed, they are just as fluid as the language that made them. Individually and collectively, we can repurpose language to reshape our identities and thus remake the spheres we embody. With an emphasis on reading and podcast interviews, this workshop introduces you to poetry, short essays, and performance (spoken word) through creative writing exercises or “games”. We will use these exercises as a point of departure to first examine our worlds through the words that construct them, and then we will use language to imagine how to remake our worlds with words. Your final grade will be based on a written portfolio of 4-5 finalized short texts and a reading of your work.
