PSNY BIPOC Free Verse Workshop: Memory Portals

A free generative virtual workshop for BIPOC Creatives with poet Isabella A. Salcedo!

Poems hold memories in ways our bodies sometimes cannot. The memories in our immediate recall are important, but what happens when we delve a bit deeper? How can memories act as portals into discoveries of the self? What can be learned by this practice of listening? Together, we will explore methods of accessing our memories through everyday objects and conversations. The goal is not simply to write about the necklace you never take off or the argument you had with your sister five years ago, but to reflect on them, to analyze them, to bring the past into the present and see what it wants to teach us. We will call upon Ross Gay, Rita Dove, Marie Howe, and more.

About the instructor: Isabella Salcedo (she/her) is a poet, oral historian, and educator from Central Virginia. She writes with a sense of urgency and determination for life after experiencing a school shooting. Through her poetry, she hopes to understand her histories, her capacity for empathy and gratitude, her people and places she calls home. Isabella has been published in UVAToday, Zaum, Cafe MFA, and VMag.

PSNY's Free Verse Workshops are identity-centered, free virtual spaces designed to uplift marginalized creatives. To create a system of equity within our community, participants of all Free Verse Workshops receive a 50% discount code, redeemable on any of our Weekly Virtual Workshops, each Thursday from 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM EST. For more on the program, feel free to visit https://poetrysocietyny.org/free-verse.

Free Verse events are open to attendees of all backgrounds who enter with respect for the focus of the space and PSNY’s code of conduct.